Therapist, Adviser, Nurse or what?

Occupational Therapists (OTs) are gradually creeping into the Occupational Health (OH) profession.  When you look at the job title, it makes perfect sense but in the UK, OTs have generally been engaged in helping the elderly and infirm back into their homes after a stay in hospital.  Home Care Therapist would make more sense as [...]

By |2012-11-21T14:03:23+00:00November 17th, 2012|Blog, Uncategorised|0 Comments

The four rules of absence management.

There is an old saying that goes “look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.”  Absence is the same.  If you manage the individual absentees fairly, reasonably but closely, then the overall absence total and associated cost will reduce. Rule 1 is act early. Have a policy where the employee must ring in if [...]

By |2012-11-21T14:03:52+00:00November 16th, 2012|Blog, Uncategorised|0 Comments

Confidentiality in the occupational health setting

This article is taken from my book The Health at Work Guide to Life Like any health professional, Occupational Health Advisers, Physicians and associated professions are bound by strict rules that govern their practice.  An employee’s health information is theirs and theirs alone unless they consent otherwise. Confidentiality is a fundamental part of professional practice [...]

By |2012-11-21T14:04:43+00:00November 12th, 2012|Blog, Uncategorised|0 Comments

Time out

Piers Morgan likened his appointment to Editor of the Daily Mirror at the age of 29 to being a kid presented with the biggest train set you could imagine.  I took a similar, although downgraded view of my own venture into self employment in 2006.  Here was a big and occasionally scary toy that I could build [...]

By |2012-11-21T14:05:07+00:00November 9th, 2012|Blog, Uncategorised|0 Comments

Happiness, maths and recruitment

A recent RSS feed from HR Review (http://www.hrreview.co.uk) discussed an article about Happiness.  I decided to go to the source and found that every quarter Office Angels (http://www.office-angels.com) carry out some research to find out how happy we all are in our work.   The much discussed figure by both parties for the quarter August to [...]

By |2012-11-06T17:11:06+00:00November 3rd, 2012|Blog, Uncategorised|0 Comments

Five common mental health conditions you may see in the workplace

Mental health problems are very common and affect 1 in 4 of the UK population. A mental health disorder or mental illness is a psychological pattern, potentially reflected in behaviour, that is generally associated with distress or disability, and which is not considered part of normal development of a person's culture. Mental health disorders take many different [...]

By |2012-11-21T14:02:50+00:00November 2nd, 2012|Blog, Uncategorised|0 Comments

Asbestos and latency

I first came across asbestos related disease in my earliest days of nursing.  I was an auxiliary nurse on a male medical ward – an accidental job that led to an accidental career, which occasionally takes me full circle and back to the case of Brian.  Brian had spent most of his life driving a [...]

By |2012-11-21T14:15:03+00:00October 31st, 2012|Blog, Uncategorised|0 Comments

Are pre-employment health assessments allowed or not?

Pre-employment health assessments have come under much scrutiny in recent years.  There was a time when many organisations would have you up in front of the company doctor for a chat and a “once over” before appointing you.   Gradually there was a realisation that this was rather time consuming, expensive, unnecessary and the often arbitrary [...]

By |2012-11-06T17:11:48+00:00October 30th, 2012|Blog, Uncategorised|0 Comments

Do you employ people or clones?

I am often asked to see employees with musculoskeletal problems.  As with all occupational health services, they make up about a third of my referrals.  However I have noticed a recent trend. On four occasions in the last 6 months, the root cause of the problem appears to have been a new chair.  Yes a [...]

By |2012-11-21T14:15:19+00:00October 26th, 2012|Blog, Uncategorised|0 Comments
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