Answer: 1. Legal
The overriding reason for companies to engage an occupational health service is to protect workers, and for legal reasons. There is health and safety legislation which specifies the need for health checking, such as, the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations and the Control of Noise at Work Regulations where health surveillance is clearly set out. However, no law stipulates an OH service per se. So when would think about engaging one?
2. Safety
Fitness for work is important too, not only for the worker but also for an organisation. For example, construction workers have to climb scaffolding or work with earth moving equipment. These workers usually need a higher level of medical fitness than say somebody who works in an office. Occupational health services offer these checks, tailored to suit your workplace.
Some categories of workers too, such as train drivers and guards, must, by law, have medical clearance before starting work.
3. Product related
An occupational health service can give instant access to medical professionals; you do not have to wait for NHS GP or Specialists. One area where this is particularly important is when the product you make or supervise, is affected by the health of your employees. Here are two examples:
a. Food handlers
Those who process food can have problems that may affect the quality or the integrity of the food. Food poisoning is a serious issue, especially for those who have been abroad and those who have an underlying illness such as diarrhoea and vomiting. Bugs can get into the food and passed on to customers. For food producers or processors, an outbreak of food contamination can result in serious penalties.
b. Health Care Workers
You wouldn't want to go into hospital and catch something nasty, would you? Diseases such as Hepatitis B or HIV? In these examples the vaccination status of each worker is important. OH services can check this (and other diseases) and arrange vaccinations if needed; or recommend limited work for the health care worker, so as to protect vulnerable patients.
4. Absence
People taking off time sick fraudulently is costly and disruptive for any organisation. Medical professionals challenge those who are regularly off sick and decide whether there is a valid reason or whether they are just playing the system. They report their findings back to the Manager in the form of recommendations. Once you have advice, you can either make provisions for their illness or take disciplinary action.
5. Wellbeing
You can start your own well-being programs tailored to your workforce; such as, if you have call centre staff they are usually young and, in my experience, tend to smoke and drink more than other work groups. By raising awareness of binge drinking and smoke related lung diseases such as COPD you may be able to influence their health behaviours, thus protecting their long-term health.
You may also incidentally improve their attendance.
