Occupational Health

Occupational health has shifted its focus from treating occupational diseases to preventing them in the first place. As part of this fundamental change in outlook, it was realised that monitoring the health of the workforce on an ongoing basis could lead to early intervention and prevention. Occupational health surveillance is a system of ongoing health checks for your employees at prescribed times. Some of these health checks are required by law, such as for employees exposed to noise or vibration, ionizing radiation, solvents, fumes, dust, biological agents, and other substances hazardous to health.

Occupational health surveillance and your risk assessment

Your risk assessment should be used to identify any need for health surveillance of your employees. Occupational health surveillance is not a substitute for undertaking a risk assessment or implementing effective controls of risk. Occupational health surveillance can help identify where more action needs to be taken to control risks.

Do I need occupational health surveillance?

The answer to this question can be found in your risk assessment. Your risk assessment should identify the hazards in your workplace, who is at risk, and the measures you take to control those risks.

In some cases, control measures may not always be reliable, despite appropriate checking and maintenance. Therefore, it makes sense to introduce health surveillance to detect any ill health early.

A simple method is to establish an employee self-reporting occupational health questionnaire.

An example of a simple employee self-reporting health questionnaire and a workshop risk assessment is provided for guidance or as a download to the right of this article.

More detailed information can be found on the following link.

Health surveillance – Understand what type your business needs (hse.gov.uk)

Stoneworkers: Health and safety topics (hse.gov.uk)