DVV Media has announced that, from Monday (17 February), OHW+, Personnel Today’s subscription service for occupational health and wellbeing professionals, will come to an end.
The move will mean the title, which started life as The Manchester University Journal for Industrial Nurses all the way back in March 1949, will cease publication.
All existing health and wellbeing content, including the occupational health and wellbeing digital archive, will now migrate across to become freely available as part of Personnel Today, which will continue its health and wellbeing coverage.
The monthly OHW+ Direct e-newsletter will be rebranded as Personnel Today Health & Wellbeing Direct, while the bi-monthly OHW+ Editor’s Choice e-newsletter will also come to an end.
Rob Moss, editorial director at Personnel Today, said the move was simply a response to the difficult commercial headwinds currently being faced by many media organisations.
“Given its rich heritage stretching back over 75 years, it is clearly regrettable that OHW+ will be coming to an end. For those who have an ongoing OHW+ membership, a refund will be issued by 17 March 2025, and if you have any questions feel free to contact us at [email protected].
“We would like to thank all former editorial staff, contributors, subscribers and advertisers who have supported the publication over many decades,” Moss said.
The Manchester University Journal for Industrial Nurses was initially published quarterly and then went bi-monthly in 1950 and in 1955 was taken over by the Royal College of Nursing.
From 1963, it became the monthly journal Occupational Health, familiar to many within the profession, before in 2015 rebranding as Occupational Health & Wellbeing.
Although the pandemic in 2020 thrust the value of occupational health into the spotlight as never before, commercially an ongoing decline in reader numbers and the cost of physically printing publications rising sharply meant in 2021 it switched from being a print publication to its current subscriber-based online model, OHW+.
Consultant editor Nic Paton also expressed his sadness at the decision. “From a personal perspective, it is very much the end of an era, as I have written for the various iterations of OHW+ for 24 years.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank the amazing editors I worked for during that time, namely Eliza O’Driscoll, Sara Bean, Noel O’Reilly, and Ashleigh Webber. I also had the honour of editing Occupational Health & Wellbeing myself from 2018 to 2021,” he said.
However, he expressed confidence that occupational health as a profession and specialty will continue to be a vitally important part of the workplace health landscape, not least as we look to – and beyond – the current government’s Get Britain Working white paper and Keep Britain Working review.
“It has been my privilege and pleasure to engage with so many inspiring practitioners over the years, and my thanks to all of you. OHW+ may be leaving the field of play, but there is still all to play for when it comes to shaping the future of workplace health provision. Good luck to you all – and keep up the good fight,” Paton added.
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