A programme has been launched to look at ways to expand the delivery of occupational health services within the NHS post pandemic, including developing ‘blueprints’ for future service delivery and new models for collaboration and co-working.
The ‘Growing Occupational Health’ programme is being led by Dr Steve Boorman and Dr Shriti Pattani, along with the NHS Health and Work Network, the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, Society of Occupational Medicine, NHS Employers, NHS Health and Wellbeing Expert Advisory Board, the Social Partnership Forum and NHS England and NHS Improvement.
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As a briefing document outlining the scope of the programme explained: “We recognise that our OH people have gone above and beyond during the pandemic, and we believe that now is the time to increase support our NHS OH services to become more strategic, integrated, and proactive partners.”
The aim of the programme, as the graphic below shows, is to help position OH within the NHS as “a trusted, strategic, and integrated organisational partner”, to grow services (including putting a greater emphasis on preventative care), to develop more multidisciplinary service delivery, to empower OH leadership, and to increase the OH workforce, capacity and capability.
The plan is also for the programme to inform future ‘blueprints’ for potential service delivery models and, subsequently, “the development of a longer-term programme of work and investment plan”.
To that end, a number of virtual ‘engagement events’ are being held during August to gather views and input, and a short online survey has been developed.
“We will integrate feedback from our engagement events and progress the wider programme ambitions and deliverables by collaboratively working with you as our OH community to deliver upon the vision for the programme,” the programme document added.
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This would include “releasing development offers” to expand the profession and the development of “a bespoke OH leadership development programme”, it added.
The launch of the programme aligns with one of the key aims of the NHS People Plan, which is to focus on staff health and wellbeing, as NHS chief people officer Prerana Issar outlined at a conference last year.
