What is Occupational Health?
Occupational health plays a vital role in promoting and maintaining the health and wellbeing of employees and eligible students. The key functions of occupational health are:
- Promotion and maintenance of health and well-being
- A primary function of occupational health is to ensure a positive relationship between and employee’s work and their health. This involves proactive measures to promote overall wellbeing and prevent health matters related to the workplace.
- Clinical Support and Risk Recognition
- Occupational health professionals can provide clinical expertise to support recognition of health risks associated in the workplace, they support assessing the severity of the risks and potential impact on employee health, considering both physical and psychological factors.
- Assessment of physical and psychological Capability
- Occupational health evaluates employee physical and psychological capability to perform job tasks safely and effectively. This assessment assists in identifying any limitations or requirements for recommended adjustments to ensure tasks can be completed without risking health or safety. It is the role of occupational health to offer guidance, and ultimately the role of the University to determine the practicality of reasonable adjustments.
- Health Surveillance
- Occupational health may advise on the requirement to develop and implement systems for detecting early signs of work-related ill-health, this is known as health surveillance. Your area manager/safety advisor is responsible for conducting risk assessments, the role of occupational health is to offer guidance for the inclusion into surveillance programmes.
Overall, occupational health is a resource for both employees and the University in promoting a health and safe work environment. Occupational health does not work in isolation and is only part of the People and Organisational Development team, with links to Safety and Environmental Protection teams.