What is Occupational Health at Work in England?

As an employer, taking care of your employees’ health is vital for running a successful business. According to the NHS, each year people take approximately 170 million sick days each year. Thus, anything you as an employer can do to reduce time off for health issues and get employees back into the workplace is worth considering. Furthermore, the longer your employees take off work for ill health, the less chance of them returning to their job. Where they have taken at least six months off, the possibility of them returning to the workplace is only 50 %. Therefore, as an employer, you may wish to consider using occupational health in the workplace to help your employees with good workplace health. This article will explain occupational health at work and why you may want to use it.

What is Occupational Health?

Occupational health is a medical service that can apply to physical and mental health. It aids in well-being at work, helping your employees stay healthy and safe. Occupational health also helps to manage risks in your workplace that may result in the poor health of your employees.

Why Use Occupational Health?

Prioritising staff health is essential and can increase business productivity and profitability. You may, therefore, decide to use occupational health where your employee has returned from a period of sickness, including a period of long-term sickness.

Occupational health advice can help inform you as to how your employee may be able to:

• feel better;
• return to the workplace;
• carry out their job; and 
• prevent further health issues by tackling any problems which could cause these.

For example, if your employee wishes to return to work after a wrist injury, you may supply them with wrist support to use their workstation equipment comfortably.

How to Use Occupational Health

If you use occupational health for your employee, you should detail this in a workplace policy so that they know it and the process. If your business is small and does not need a policy, you may look at each potential case and discuss it with the employee and their doctor.

Where you do have an occupational health policy in place, it should detail:

• the circumstances when you may make an occupational health referral assessment;
• where an occupational health assessment may take place and with whom;
• whether or not you decide to pay your employee when they attend occupational health appointments; and
• the individual steps as part of an occupational health assessment.

If you decide that occupational health may be helpful to any of your employees, you must check if your employee is happy to proceed with it first. When doing so, you may outline that benefits include:

• enabling employees to return to work sooner; and
• obtaining the support employees may require.

Where your employee does agree to the potential use of occupational health, the first step is to take occupational health advice. Secondly, the occupational health assistant will conduct an assessment for your employee, which they will pass to you. 

The Occupational Health Assessment

An occupational health assessment focuses on your employees’ jobs and how carrying them out affects their health. This involves your employee:

• explaining to the occupational health adviser what their health problems are;
• letting the occupational health adviser know about any treatment they are already undergoing; 
• detailing any worries they have regarding returning to the workplace; and
• signing a consent form if the occupational health adviser requires further information from their doctor.

Once you see the occupational health assessment, you should discuss it with your employee to decide what to do next. For example, this may include:

• your employee returning to the workplace gradually, at fewer hours to begin with;
• allowing your employee to undergo therapy;
• making adjustments to your employee’s workstation; or
• allowing your employee future time away from work.

You may require your employee to undertake another assessment later down the line to see how they are progressing to potentially taking on their complete duties.

Key Takeaways

Occupational health is a useful procedure to ensure the good health of your employees at work. For example, it is beneficial when an employee has to take sick leave away from the workplace. Your business may have a policy on occupational health that will explain to your employees when you consider the use of occupational health and the steps the process may take. For example, suppose you use occupational health in the workplace, and your employee agrees it may be helpful for them. In that case, an occupational health adviser must conduct an occupational health assessment on your employee. This could reveal how to better support their health in the workplace and enable them to return sooner than they might have otherwise.

If you need help understanding occupational health at work in England, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents for a low monthly fee. So call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.

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