‘There is nothing like a Dame, nothing in the world. There is nothing you can name that is anything like a Dame’ (Rogers & Hammerstein). Well, that’s what I thought when Dame Carol Black was appointed National Director for Occupational Health, but when will the woman open her mouth?
She’s been in her post a year now, and what benefit has there been from this appointment? We all gave her a bit of a wide berth initially so that she could get to grips with the magnitude of it all, but 12 months later and still nothing? This is beyond a joke.
I for one expected national press coverage charting the progress being made since her appointment, but outside of the specialist press, I’ve seen nothing. And now it’s becoming embarrassing as she’s ‘wheeled out’ at every OH-related event, shuffling uncomfortably in her seat until it’s over. If you want my opinion (and you’re going to get it anyway), she knows nothing about occupational health, and is dead scared of putting her foot in it, so she keeps her lips firmly sealed.
Well pantomime season is approaching. And I’ll be sitting in the front row at every Health and Safety Executive/Department for Work and Pensions event shouting with gusto: “Oh no she didn’t”, because it’s quite plain that as National Director for Occupational Health, she didn’t, she hasn’t, and she won’t.
Yet another wasted opportunity for OH.
