Workplace Health Connections

RSI survey | workers using mobile technology at risk

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 12:29:54 +0000

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.

New health at work award | Get your free entry in now

Thu, 01 May 2008 16:58:25 +0000

This blog’s main aim is to get people with responsibility for workplace health talking to each other and collaborating, as our millions of enthusiastic readers know. In keeping with that, here are two opportunities to win an award for delivering good workplace health services in 2008 and they are both free to enter.

The latest opportunity is a new category in the Personnel Today Awards, the Award for Health at Work. If you’ve been to this event before you’ll know it is quite a bash, so well worth getting on the shortlist. You’ve only got a month left to enter so get to work on your entries now. I know for a fact that there are lots of you doing innovative things who can demonstrate the benefits for staff and the organisation alike.

Men's health | Do men avoid health checks?

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:46:26 +0000

Is it true that men don’t take an interest in their health? The stereotype which I accepted as gospel truth until about 10 minutes ago is that men won’t go for health checks or turn up at health and wellbeing days at work because they don’t care about their health. At conferences on occupational health, speakers have said that the problems is that health screening attracts only women and the worried well, usually both. Men who have actually got something wrong with them are even less likely to go and see a doctor or nurse because they’re frightened it might be something serious and would rather die in ignorance than find out.

Flexible working | employers must support carers

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:40:08 +0000

Personnel Today’s top story this week is about a report by charity Working Families showing that the right to request flexible working introduced in 2003 isn’t having an effect. Employers deny this. Now there’s a turn up for the books. Come on boys, let’s get real.

Facebook personal planner | remember those appointments

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:42:29 +0000

Here's something that's a real sign of the times. If you've been following the stories about the social networking website Facebook you'll know that people use it to stay in touch with friends and contacts and make new ones.

Now someone in the marketing team at health cash plan firm HSA has latched onto this new-fangled interweb thingy and is launching a so-called health and lifestyle reminder service, the ‘HSA Personal Planner’. You can install this onto your unique profile and also download it onto your computer desktop. The idea is it then reminds you when you've got a 'lifestyle appointment' such as a dental appointment or a friend’s birthday. It also provides daily health tips and ‘Doctor, Doctor’ jokes. Yippee.

Dame Carol Black | video interview on key occupational health issues

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:13:47 +0000

This morning the Personnel Today and Occupational Health journal team arrived at Dame Carol Black's office to record a video interview with her, hoping to give a bit more insight into how her recent review of the health of the working age, Working for a Healthier Tomorrow, would affect employers, managers and health professionals. Most of the standard TV coverage on the day of the launch focused on fit notes and getting people off incapacity benefit so this is the first television interview which looks at her recommendations in any depth. We will make the video available later this week but here are a couple of snippets of what she said on key issues.

Asked if we needed lots more occupational health nurses and doctors, Dame Carol said she didn't want to be prescriptive about numbers but said it was the different groups themselves to decide in collaboration.

Dame Carol Black's report | New ideas are 90 years old

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:53:56 +0000

I came across something recently which shows that the big new ideas in Dame Carol Black’s report on the health of people of working age are not quite as cutting edge as you might think. We already know that various imminent types were talking about the biopsychosocial model and such like twenty years ago but the roots of the new Black report’s recommendations go back further than that. In 1926 a husband and wife team of doctors, George Scott Williamson and Innes Hope Pearse set up the Peckham Experiment which recruited 950 families in Peckham, South London, and gave them access to swimming, games and workshops and monitored the impact on their health.

Dame Carol Black report | the big occupational health questions?

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:27:53 +0000

Occupational Health journal, which from the April edition incorporates Occupational Health Review, has the task of looking at last week’s report on the health of working age people from Dame Carol Black and analysing how likely it is to succeed and what is likely to happen as a result of it. What do you think? Here is my initial stab at unpacking the key themes (in no particular order) :

Dame Carol Black report | a nation reels

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:55:12 +0000

Four days after Carol Black's epoch-making, earth-shatteringly important report on the health of the working age it is difficult to tell how profound are the shock waves rocking UK PLC. So I have done an in-depth survey (i.e. I’ve looked around the office). Well, no change here. The chocolates are still piled on top of the filing cabinet. We’re all still slouched in front of our PCs in postures straight out of an ergonomist’s training manual. The national news media had moved on by lunchtime on Monday (the day of the report’s launch).

Black Review | Who will lead national occupational health service?

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:12:56 +0000

Finally Dame Carol Black’s report on the health of the working age is out, Working for a healthier tomorrow.

The rhetoric is great, especially if you are an occupational health practitioner, but what will it mean in practice? This begs a lot of questions. Leaving aside the stuff that’s been trailed already (sick notes, sorry ‘well notes’, consensus statements) the big ideas are:

Occupational health nurses | RCN under fire for axeing OH adviser

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:48:29 +0000

The massively powerful but apparently cash-strapped nurses union the Royal College of Nursing seems to be out of step with one of the biggest changes to health policy in a generation. A week before Dame Carol Black is set to announce a raft of recommendations aimed at boosting access to occupational health services, the RCN is under fire for getting rid of one of their professional advisers for occupational health nurses.

Stress at work | Go soft on line managers

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:14:40 +0000

Dame Carol Black will make her recommendations about the health of working age people this month. She says the hardest part to write was the advice for employers. How do you tackle the terrible line managers and toxic corporate cultures behind the epidemic in stress and MSDs? A lot of people call these the ‘soft issues’, the fluffy, namby-pampy stuff for the cissys to mop up when the real men have done the hard, important stuff. When you’ve got a man’s job to do you bring in the employment lawyers, die-hard OH and safety traditionalists, doctors (and nurses) and HR. They do the regulations, exposure limits, key performance indicators. Well hard, isn’t it?

Health promotion | DoH pulls plug on DPP

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:48:52 +0000

The Developing Patient Partnerships charity is to close because the Department of Health won’t fund it beyond April 2008. The charity has since 1997 worked to promote good health messages to patients and better use of GP services . The timing is a bit odd to say the least – just when Dame Carol Black is about to announce her recommendations on the health of working age people, a big part of which is going to be about promoting healthier lifestyles and trying to get rid of the sick note culture.