Inside An Occupational Health Assessment

What is Occupational Health? How does an assessment work? What does it involve for both employer and employee? And why does it matter? Doctors SIMON CLIFT and MICHELLE TUFNELL answer these questions and more…

Work is a big part of the lives of many of us. When a person’s poor health impacts their work, or when work negatively impacts their health, their overall quality of life will of course suffer. But if timely adjustments are made in their workplace, then they can be supported to do their job in the best way, and to improve their overall health as well. This is what we, as Occupational Health clinicians, do.

Occupational Health is a specialty within medicine that focuses on the relationship between work and health. When ill health makes it harder for someone to do their job, we conduct an assessment to understand what’s going on, and make recommendations as to what employer and employee can do to make the situation better.

It can be a sensitive area of medicine 

Most people who have an assessment with us have never had one before. Typically, they are already off work with ill health, or they’re at risk of stopping work, or there are concerns about their ability to carry out their role. They are referred to us by their employer, and when they see us, they often feel anxious or defensive about the role we play.

But we’re absolutely not there to try and catch them out. And the employer isn’t either. We just want to support them to do their job well, and to enjoy the best possible health. To do this, we first need to find out exactly what’s going on, so we can then make helpful recommendations.

We’re there to provide an expert, objective opinion

It can sometimes be hard for an employer and employee to see what’s needed to support the employee to do their job. Having someone like us can be really helpful, especially if an employee has a complex medical condition(s). Our medical background means we can delve into the employee’s situation in detail, to consider all the relevant factors, to analyse what we find out, and then to make recommendations for both employer and employee. And for UK clients, we’ll give advice about relevant legislation too.  

Here’s how the process typically works.

Employers should first tell the employee their intentions

If you’re an employer with concerns about an employee, you should speak to them and let them know that you’d like them to have an assessment. Once you’ve gained their consent, contact us and we will send you a form to fill in. This form is an opportunity to tell us what questions you’d like us to answer e.g. is this person fit to return to work? What adjustments can we make to support them? 

The more information you give us at this stage, and the more specific you are in what you want to know, the higher the quality of the report you will receive at the end of it all. The individual should see this form before it’s submitted so there are no surprises for them when they attend the assessment. We would then make contact with the employee to set up an appointment. 

We typically spend sixty to ninety minutes speaking with the employee 

If you’re an employee about to attend an assessment, here’s what to expect. We’ll introduce ourselves and explain our background. We’ll remind you why the consultation is happening. And we’ll check you’re happy to proceed. We’ll then ask you about the health issues that are affecting your work, and / or the work issues that are affecting your health. 

We’ll want to find out things like: What does a normal week look like? How is your health issue having an impact on that? Are there any personal issues that might be having an impact as well? We might also suggest some self-care measures you can take. And we might also talk through recommendations we might make to the employer. 

We never disclose anything the employee says to us without their consent 

After the assessment, we go away to write a draft report, which will outline some possible next steps for both employer and employee. For the employer we suggest what they can do to support the employee e.g. allowing greater flexibility as to when and where the employee can carry out their work. For the employee, we will suggest the things they could do to optimise the way they work e.g. improvements to their workstation equipment, sensible ergonomic measures or advice on assistive technology.

We would then send this draft report to the employee. We want to check with them that we have the facts right, and that they are happy for the personal information in that report to go to their employer. It’s really helpful for an employer to have the details of a particular condition or injury that someone has, in order to be able to fully understand it, and therefore to understand the sort of support they need. But if there were any aspects of the employee’s situation that they didn’t want going to the employer, we would not share them. 

Once we’ve had feedback and made changes, we send the final version to the HR department, Line Manager and the individual. It is then up to the employer in discussion with the individual employee to consider how to put the changes we suggest into practice. We can also provide advisory support for HR, leaders and line mangers, to help put the recommendations into practice and navigate next steps.

These reports can set someone in a whole new direction 

Our assessments are often with people who are already off work, some of whom are at a real crisis point. We have seen that a crisis can be an opportunity for change – change in terms of how a person is supported at work, but also for how that person considers their own wellbeing and promotes their health. But it would be better if we were contacted sooner, before people reach a crisis point. This might mean the adjustments required are easier to make, and the costs incurred to the organisation are smaller. And so our advice is, don’t delay. If you’re in doubt, get in touch.

Might someone in your team need an Occupational Health Assessment? Get in touch.