Occupational Health

The Trust’s Occupational Health & Wellbeing Department is an in-house resource, providing support to directly employed Trust staff to minimise work-related ill-health and maximise good general health in the workplace. The department is not an NHS referral service and does not provide services to the public or to agency staff.

Being in work is an important contributor to good health. The longer someone is off sick, the harder it is for them to get back to work. We act as impartial advisers to both employees and managers. Our service is accredited under the Safe Effective Quality Occupational Health Standards (SEQOHS) scheme.

Our services

Pre-employment health screening for new employees: health questionnaire screening; follow-up consultation with a clinician (if required); assessment for fitness for specific tasks; immunisation screening.
Management referral consultations: fitness for work assessment; return-to-work plans; case management; ill-health retirement assessment; musculoskeletal assessments.
Health surveillance: audiometry; spirometry; HAVS assessment; ionising radiation medicals; skin checks; vocational driver medicals; forklift truck driver medicals; night worker and lone working assessments; working at height medicals; DSE assessment and guidance on work station set up and working environments via photographic assessment.
Workplace immunisations and blood screening: contamination incident post-exposure support; screening and vaccinations to maximise employee and patient protection; MRSA/PVL swabs and skin review.
Counselling and mental health services: single session therapy; counselling; EMDR; guided self-help (CBT); referral to specialist mental health adviser.

Our service ethos and values

Independent: provided equally to all employees, whether they are seen as a self-referral or at the request of management.
Supportive: to both the organisation and individuals, with the interest of both at heart.
Impartial: we do not 'take sides'.
Objective: providing a balanced view based on evidence and the information we are given, trusting that people will tell the truth as they see it.
Competent: qualified, experienced, and skilled staff.
Respectful: we will respect the views of individuals.
Confidential: information generally only released to a third party with the consent of the individual.
Open: we prefer to see openness of correspondence concerning an individual. Subject to confidentiality, we would generally expect to say the same thing to an individual as we say about them to management and that anything we write to management should also be available to the individual.

Trust staff can access further information and guidance on referring to these services on the Staff Hub intranet for Trust staff.