What Is Occupational Health?

Understanding Occupational Health

• Occupational health professionals help to maintain the physical, mental, and social
  health and welfare of workers across various occupations and industries. Our role is
  to help companies to maintain compliance with Health, Safety and Employment
  Legislation and regulations, whilst also improving and maintaining employees’ health
  and consequently their performance in the workplace.
• Our role is two fold. We provide services to ensure workplaces are safe, not affecting
  employees’ health, but also to ensure employees are safe to work in the role and
  environment they are in.
• We help to keep people in work and help them return to work.

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What Does Occupational Health Involve?

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Health Surveillance

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Regular monitoring of employees’ health to detect early signs of work-related illnesses or
injuries. This is a legal requirement in a range of roles and industries under the Health and
Safety at Work Act. Those with high exposure to harmful or potentially harmful situations,
jobs and machinery or tools are likely to require regular health surveillance.

Your site audit and health and safety risk assessments will help you to identify individuals,
roles or areas with higher exposure to these risks, which will be the basis of your health
surveillance requirements.

Health surveillance will help to identify early signs of ill health, inform of possible
contributions from the workplace towards employee health and advise further treatment or
assessment for those with abnormal findings.

Health surveillance is an essential and hugely valuable piece of an organisation’s health
strategy.

Assessment, Rehabilitation and Return-to-Work Support

A large proportion of occupational health is in the assessment and rehabilitation of those
with long term illness. Workplace absence recently hit it’s highest level since 2004 at 2.4%.

In Occupational Health we help with assessments, understanding the reasons for ill health,
unpicking contributing factors and making decisions around whether an employee is fit for
the role in question. From this assessment we will provide the individual with support and
rehabilitation advice to ensure that they are on the best path to return to work in the safest
and most effective manner.

Our rehab process is a simple three part process.

Assess: What is your current level of ability? What are you able to do?

Assess: What level of ability do you need to be at? What do you need to be able to do?

Programme: We reverse engineer the role required into smaller and easier steps until we
reach the current level of ability. This creates a list of goals and steps to inform the rehab
process to take the individual from where they are currently to where they need to be.

We take assessments and referrals for Physical health conditions, mental health
conditions and general long term sickness absence.

Why Do Companies Need Occupational Health?

Legal Compliance

• Health and Safety Regulations: Compliance with laws and regulations related to
  employee health and safety.
• Avoiding Liabilities: Minimising legal risks associated with workplace accidents or
  health-related claims.

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Employee Health and Productivity

• Reducing Absenteeism: Healthier employees take fewer sick days.
• Enhancing Morale: Employees appreciate a focus on their well-being.
• Improving Performance: Healthy workers are more productive.

Risk Management

• Accident Prevention: Identifying and addressing risks to prevent workplace
  accidents.
• Health Hazard Control: Managing exposure to harmful substances or conditions.

Who Might Need Occupational Health?

• Any Organisation may need occupational health support at any time. Whether large
  corporations, small businesses, government agencies, or non-profits, ill-health can
  affect employees in any role or any industry.
• Specific Industries: Sectors with higher risks (e.g., manufacturing, construction,
  food, waste management, healthcare) these industries are affected by ill-health
  absence the most, and certain industries with higher exposure to substances and
  situations with high risk of ill health and injury require regular health assessments.

Our role in Occ Health is simple.

• We help you stay in work.
• We help you return to work.
• We make sure you are safe to work.
• We make sure the workplace isn't affecting your health.

We do that by:

• Assessing
• Treating
• Rehabbing
• Supporting

Our role is to help both you and your employee to know that they are safe and healthy enough to
work, perform at their best and make sure that the conditions around them aren't going to affect
that.

All with the intention of helping your staff to think, feel and perform at their very best, for the long
run.

In summary, occupational health is not just a legal requirement; it’s an investment in the
health and welfare of your employees and the overall success of your organisation. By
prioritising occupational health, companies create safer, healthier work environments and
demonstrate their commitment to employee welfare.

At Co-Action Health we provide a full package of Occupational Health services for any need
in any industry. If you are looking for an Occupational Health provider you can trust, get in
touch with us via the contact form.