From the President of the Society of Occupational MedicineFebruary 2016
We are now well underway in the New Year, and there are opportunities in these coming months for us as members of the SOM to make a significant difference to health and work.
Firstly, however, I'd like to introduce you to two new arrivals.
Jane Edbrooke has just joined us as our Head of Communications, this being a joint appointment with the FOM. As a shared resource, Jane will bring coherence to our communications, and will work specifically for the SOM part of her time. She will work closely with Natalie Elmitt, who continues to do a great job supporting all our activities in the central SOM and regional groups.
We are also pleased to announce that Nick Pahlhas been appointed to take over from Hilary Todd on her retirement as CEO, on 3rd May. Nick has a background in Public Health, with an MSc from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1998, and joined the Register of Public Health in 2011. He has held a number of NHS posts, including as an Assistant Director at a London PCT and has held posts as a Director of a national hospice charity and technical adviser to Marie Stopes International. He is currently CEO of The British Acupuncture Council (BAcC), which is accredited by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care. He is vice chair of the Research Council for Complementary Medicine and is on the steering group of the Professional Association Research Network. Although still working at the BAcC until May, Nick will be getting to know the Society between now and then, and will be joining us for events in the regional groups depending on his availability.
We know that good work is good for health, and I am looking forward to publication in the coming weeks of the Government's White Paper on Health and Work. There continues to be increasing interest from the Government in helping people stay in work, and helping people with health conditions and disabilities get into work. We as occupational health professionals have a clear role, particularly in advising on what works and what doesn't, and on services.
We are also acutely aware of the important of culture, effective leadership and good management practices to support health and wellbeing at work. I'd bring your attention to the recent report by the CIPD on the health and wellbeing agenda in the workplace.
In this last month I met with the BMA Occupational Medicine Committee to speak about the recent consultation by the GMC on the next edition of their Confidentiality publication, we as the SOM and BMA OMC having worked with the FOM on a submission led by the FOM Ethics Committee, and two developing areas; how we can contribute to current work to improveuse of the Med 3 Fit Note, and also to the new Fit for Work (FFW) service, now rolled out across Great Britain. I see FFW as being not only complementary to that which we provide, but indeed also as a means of increasing awareness of the importance of the relationship between health and work, and driving referrals to occupational health services. For those of you not fully familiar with FFW,being a Government initiative providing free advice on health and work, and a free assessment service for employees who are off work for four weeks or more, guidance is available on the gov.uk website. Fit for work is available across Great Britain, delivered by Health Management Ltd, a Maximus company, in England and Wales and under Scottish Government arrangements in Scotland
Fit for Work provides advice and assessment, but is not able to provide the full range of services that we as occupational health professionals do, such as health surveillance, specialist medicals, more complex case management etc. TheSOMFind an OH doctor service continues to provide a useful resource for employers; working with our colleagues in the FOM, BMA, the allied health professional bodies and the new Faculty of Occupational Health Nursing development group, we are also examining how colleagues in healthcare, employers and employees might be better informed about occupational health services and how the level of specialisation might be more easily identifiable. I'd be interested in your views on the value of an accreditation scheme, for example, if we were to propose this.
Robin Cordell
President of the Society of Occupational Medicine
2 February 2016