What can an occupational health service help with?

Employee absences that are particularly complex and/or are difficult to resolve can require a specialised case management service. Our service provides flexible and tailored responses to meet the individual needs of each case.

Case management provides the means to support managers in resolving complex or difficult cases, providing access to the widest range of expertise as needed.

Case management helps cut through complexity and difficulty to deliver an integrated service provision which ensures

• access to expertise in a wide range of areas
• advice delivered in a coherent and integrated way
• improved support to managers and employees
• legal compliance
• reduced litigation
• reduced costs

Our OH specialists can effectively identify and determine the services required to identify possible diseases or disorders and provide recommendations on the most appropriate treatment.

Where there is a delay in access to treatment, OH can assist managers with making decisions about supporting an employee’s treatment in order to speed up their rehabilitation and return to work, saving the business money in lost time and resources. Example services available include:

• Physiotherapy
• Counselling, CBT and other mental health services

As part of a coherent employee health and wellbeing strategy, Diagnostics and Treatments ensure

• Reduced absence
• Overall cost benefit
• Improved organisational efficiency

Alcohol testing allows employers to test for evidence of the presence of alcohol, ensuring compliance with policy and legislation.

Employers who are concerned about the effects of alcohol in their organisation can use this service as a legally defensible process, which ensures the results are accurate so appropriate decisions can then be taken.

For-cause testing is undertaken in accordance with recognised laboratory standards and appropriate chain of custody procedures to eliminate the risk of possible contamination.

Alcohol testing can be considered in a broad strategic context as part of your substance abuse policy ensuring:

• Compliance with policy and legislation
• Reduction of incidents in safety critical roles
• Prevention of major incidents
• Re-inforcement of healthy lifestyle choices
• Employee support for the approach

Employees use this service to report absence on the first day they are absent and subsequently until they return to work. Details and predicted length of absence are taken and appropriate management are notified.

The service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a week, freeing up management time and can also offer added value by signposting employees to various services that may help them to return to work quicker.

As part of an integrated approach, First Day Absence Management ensures attendance and performance management is a seamless process that promotes the health, safety and wellbeing culture of the organisation in a very visible way by

• accurate measurement of sickness absence levels
• providing immediate support to employees
• monitoring compliance with policy
• supporting managers with key information and prompts
• improving decision-making

Fitness for task medicals are carried out as detailed questionnaires or face to face health assessments of individuals in order to ensure that they are fit to perform certain specialised duties. These may be undertaken to meet a statutory requirement or recognised good practice standard.

Fitness for task medicals form part of the broader management of each employee’s health, safety and well-being – not a stand alone activity.

Fitness for task medicals ensure

• compliance with legislation and good practice
• risk of litigation is minimised
• risk of accidents and incidents at work is minimised
• employee health, safety and wellbeing is protected

Health surveillance is about assessing and detecting the early signs of work-related ill health in employees exposed to certain health risks. Whilst enabling compliance with legislative requirements, it helps protect your workforce by preventing chronic health problems from developing and ensures that procedures which are in place to manage health risks are working effectively.

Health surveillance activity directly contributes to the organisation’s overall health, safety and wellbeing strategy. Integrated management information ensures

• Protection of employees from health risk at work
• Compliance with legislation
• Reduction in costs, such as insurance premiums
• Reduced sickness absence
• Retention of key skills in the workforce

We deliver immunisations to mitigate the risk of occupational exposure to infectious disease. We can create, direct and manage any necessary immunisation programme, including a recall system. All of our programmes incorporate Department of Health guidelines.

Appropriate immunisation can ensure that employees are protected from exposure to some infections in the workplace and that the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002 are adhered to.

If employees understand the broad health safety and wellbeing culture in their organisation, this can support employee engagement with immunisation programmes to ensure

• Protection of staff and in some cases their clients/customers
• Prevention of occupational acquired infection
• Compliance with legislation and good practice
• Reduce litigation

Management information is a critical service component that ensures that the services provided by occupational health are supporting the achievement of the organisation’s overall business objectives as well as meeting the agreed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) relevant to the delivery of the services.

Our management information service provides information on trends, underlying issues, volumes and highlights areas for improvement. The frequency of reporting can be adjusted to meet the organisation’s specific needs. This ensures

• The OH service is focused on achieving agreed organisational objectives
• Enhanced decision-making in relation to managing workplace health & wellbeing
• Organisational insight into health and wellbeing issues impacting on business performance

Pension and insurance medical risk management

Our approach looks at employee health, safety and well-being in its entirety. This includes helping organisations to understand when employees cannot return to work due to health issues and how best to support them in such circumstances.

Our expert medical risk management team can ensure the provision of the right advice as required by your pension or insurance schemes.

Pension and insurance medical risk management ensures

• Fair, consistent and objective assessments
• Confidence in decision-making
• Optimal support for employees
• Reduced costs (pensions/insurance premiums)

Occupational hygiene is vital to ensure that exposure to workplace hazards is managed and controlled. Where a specific hazard is in place the Occupational Hygienist will quantify the hazard which will then enable effective control measures to be implemented.

An Occupational Hygienist will undertake measurements of exposure in the workplace to identify the nature of the hazard and quantify the risk. They can also advise on the control measures in place and how these can be improved.

Environmental hazards are often overlooked and occupational hygiene ensures

• Quantifying risk from specific hazards
• Adequate control measures are in place
• Compliance with legislation
• Occupational hygiene is useful for advising on health risk management at the start of new projects.

Pre-placement screening ensures that new recruits and existing employees are medically fit to perform the duties and responsibilities of their new role, to assess if an individual’s health issues may impact on their ability to perform the role and make recommendations on any reasonable adjustments that may be required.

It’s a key building block for delivering an effective and integrated health, safety and well-being strategy.

Pre-placement screening is carried out taking into account the requirements of the relevant legislation. It ensures that you have the advice you need to be able to make adjustments to support each new recruit and enables informed decision making in recruitment practices.

Pre-placement screening ensures

• The employee and their proposed job role work well together
• Compliance with relevant legislation
• Prevent litigation arising from inappropriate placements

Vocational rehabilitation offers help for employees with complex physical health and mental health problems in overcoming any barriers their condition causes that prevents them from working.

Adopting a holistic and integrated view of health, safety and wellbeing helps organisations plan their services to deliver the optimal outcomes for employees and the organisation.

Vocational rehabilitation ensures

• Reduced absence
• Improved efficiency
• Reduced costs
• Reduction in loss of key skills

Workplace health consulting is a unique methodology using consulting tools to deliver strategic reviews of employee health, safety and well-being in organisations.

It enables organisations to ensure their health, safety and well-being activity is aligned to their strategy and integrated to maximise benefits and reduce costs.

Workplace health consulting ensures that organisations

• Understand and manage employee health, safety and well-being as a whole system
• Have a clear strategy and measurable goals for employee health safety and well-being
• Reduce the costs in managing employee health safety and well-being
• Increase return on investment from spending on employee health, safety and well-being
• Have access to integrated management information to enable better decision-making