Workplace Health Connections

Now that our national papers have got bored with RSI scare stories it would be tempting to assume the problem had gone away. In fact, it could be that mobile technology and the trend for people to work outside working hours on trains or in other locations will put the issue back on the news agenda. IT giant Microsoft  has put out a survey today  showing there is an epidemic of 'blackberry thumb'  and that Work-related RSI cases are at an all-time high with sprialling business costs. OK, admittedly this is from a company that wants you to buy its ergonomically designed hardware.

For years, HR and occupational health specialists have had an uneasy feeling about home-working and health and safety. The increasing use of mobile technology such as laptop computers, blackberrys and mobile phones with or without internet access means that risk management and health surveillance may have to extend beyond the home office into the car, the train and even the local Starbucks.

Microsoft want to publicise this to sell their ergonomically designed hardware but this issue goes beyond this into work design and practices, including working hours. Maybe now is the moment to dust off the policy on home-working and make sure your organisation is covered against absence costs or a potential costly tribunal claim. If you're old enough to remember the early days of RSI then you'll know that the condition does seem to be catching too (if one person in a department gets it, others will follow) and it is notoriously difficult to get an accurate diagnosis of the cause.

So a dyslexic medical student is to launch a legal claim against the General Medical Council to try and get the GMC to stop using multiple choice tests. The 21-year old student, Naomi Gadian claims that the test is discriminatory and inappriopriate as it is unlikely she would be presented with four options when making a diagnosis or selecting a therapy in a real job situation. The student has good A-levels so obviously hasn't been held back so far in her medical education by her dyslexia.

This issue worries me. Maybe I'm making too light of a serious issue but isn't it the case that medical terminology is particularly hard to spell and being good at recognising one condition or treatment from another is a required skill for the job?

Conceptually the whole idea of 'disability' as covered by the Disability Discrimination Act  is problemmatic as far as I'm concerned. The law should be there to protect people from discrimination which is not relevant to the job or profession. Therefore, discrimination on the grounds of ability that is relevant to the job is surely reasonable? For some professions, dyslexia is going to make someone less able to do the job than another person without the 'disability'.  It doesn't seem unreasonable in medicine to require students to be able to distinguish between technical terms reasonably quickly and accurately. But this is an issue where feelings tend to run high so I expect others may disagree.