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Well Note Britain needs to address ill workplaces - 25-03-2008 |
The British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS) welcomes Dame Carol Black’s review of the health of Britain’s working age population, and the increased focus on the need for improved occupational health, medical and nursing services. However, the BOHS is critical that the review does not adequately address the need to prevent ill-health actually being caused by work activities and the importance of occupational hygiene in prevention.
The report’s emphasis on getting people back to work and reducing benefit payments hides the fact that there is still an intolerable burden of ill health caused by unsatisfactory conditions in the workplace. The impact of work-related ill health simply cannot be ignored. Over 7,000 deaths from cancer and 13,000 new cases of cancer per year are caused by working conditions. Exposures to fumes, chemicals and dusts at work also account for around 4,000 deaths each year from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). “There has simply not been enough attention paid in this report to serious, irreversible occupational health diseases,” states Steve Bailey, incoming BOHS President.
Prevention in the workplace needs a different skill set to that for treatment and rehabilitation. It requires a knowledge of engineering, chemistry and other sciences as well as the management skills to address the design of work. This is where the role of occupational hygienists must be recognised. It is not just a medical issue: it is about recognising, evaluating and controlling working conditions that can lead to harm.
Dame Carol’s review discusses “early intervention” as the point where a patient is first seen by a GP. Early intervention ought to be about changing the workplace so that the person does not become a patient in the first place.” continues Bailey. “We must ensure that workplaces are safe. We cannot wait for tomorrow’s occupational diseases to emerge. We need to monitor conditions in workplaces and intervene early to prevent serious illnesses”.
To solve these sorts of problems it is important to tackle both occupational and non-occupational risks in a coordinated way. BOHS believes that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) needs to play a leading role in strengthening links between occupational, public and primary health communities, because the NHS does not have the resources, skills or focus appropriate to workplace interventions. The government’s Health Work and Wellbeing initiative could provide a vehicle to achieve this but it will need some vision to look beyond simply reducing sickness absence. BOHS does not consider that such a vision has been demonstrated in this review.
| British Occupational Health Society
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