Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • Maternity & Paternity
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • Maternity & Paternity
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

DoH sets guides for health checks on all new NHS staff

by Personnel Today 1 Feb 2003
by Personnel Today 1 Feb 2003

OH nurses to carry out pre-employment checks

Occupational health nurses will be required to carry out pre-employment
health checks on all new NHS healthcare staff to check for communicable
diseases, under measures announced by the Department of Health.

All NHS staff whose jobs involve exposure-prone procedures (EPPs) – where
there is a risk that injury to the worker could expose a patient to their blood
– will have to test negative for HIV and hepatitis B and C before taking up
their posts.

Under current guidelines, OH departments only need to carry out such checks
within two weeks of staff starting work, which can often result in employees
slipping through the net. Some trusts check as few as 30 per cent of their
workers.

The move has led to fears that some OH units may see a sharp increase in
workload due to the change.

For the first time, all other healthcare workers, even those not involved in
EPPs, will also have to be offered testing for hepatitis C and HIV. All new NHS
workers should already be tested for hepatitis B and tuberculosis, the DoH
said.

The Government’s focus on this issue has been heightened by the fact that
increasing numbers of NHS staff are being drafted in from overseas, sometimes
from areas where such diseases are commonplace.

Pat Troop, deputy chief medical officer, said the UK already had ‘rigorous’
measures in place to ensure patients were not put at risk of serious infection
from healthcare staff, and the new measures would strengthen these further
still.

"The measures will help healthcare workers by giving them access to
tests for these serious infections when they apply to the NHS, and immunisation
or treatment if needed," she said.

Pam Dukes, OH service manager for Camden and Islington Hospitals NHS Trust,
said for some hospitals, the new measures would simply mean a formalisation of
existing practices.

At Camden and Islington, new staff are only allowed to sign on with
personnel once they obtain a form confirming they have been checked by the OH
department. But other OH departments might be caught out.

She said the checks were designed as much to protect healthcare workers as
patients.

"The only way we can protect them is if we know how vulnerable they
are," she said.

www.doh.gov.uk/healthclear

Avatar
Personnel Today

previous post
Peugeot workers to strike over pay
next post
A very civil service

You may also like

Grants scheme set up to support women’s health...

16 May 2022

How music can help to ease anxiety at...

9 May 2022

OH will be key to navigating ‘second pandemic’...

14 Apr 2022

OH urged to be aware of abortion consultations...

8 Apr 2022

How coached eCBT is returning the workplace to...

8 Apr 2022

Why now is the time to plug the...

7 Apr 2022

Two-thirds of shift workers feel health affected by...

18 Mar 2022

TUC warns of April Covid risk assessment ‘confusion’

14 Mar 2022

Consultation on new NHS cancer standards, as waits...

11 Mar 2022

Pandemic pivot to home working fuelled mental ill...

11 Mar 2022
  • Apprenticeships are the solution to your recruitment problems PROMOTED | Apprenticeships have the pulling power...Read more
  • What it really means to be mentally fit PROMOTED | What is mental fitness...Read more
  • How music can help to ease anxiety at work PROMOTED | A lot has happened since March 2020, hasn’t it?...Read more
  • Why now is the time to plug the unhealthy gap PROMOTED | We’ve all heard the term ‘health is wealth’...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2022

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2022 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • Maternity & Paternity
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+