MEETING MINUTES

The 3-rd meeting of the Task Group of Occupational Safety and Health

(TG OSH) of the NDPHS. Helsinki, Finland,24-25 May 2012.

List of participants

No. / Name / Position / Institution / Country
Mr Rauno Piirsalu / Ministry of Social Affairs / Estonia
Ms Liisa Pert / Ministry of Social Affairs / Estonia
Mr Wiking Husberg / Ministerial Adviser / Ministry of Social affairs and health
(TG OSH Chair) / Finland
Ms Suvi Lehtinen / Chief, International Affairs / FIOH / Finland
Mr. Kari Kurppa / Leading expert / FIOH / Finland
Mr. Ivars Vanadzins / Institute of Occupational Safety and Environmental Health of RigaStradinsUniversity / Latvia
Ms Raimonda Eicinaite-Lingiene / Main specialist / Hygiene Institute / Lithuania
Mr Marek Maciejowski / NDPHS secretariat
Ms Josefin Dahlander / Programme responsible / Swedish Institute / Sweden
Dr Rokho Kim / Occupational Health Programme Manager / WHO/Europe
Mr. Marat Rudakov / Project coordinator / ILO/Moscow
  1. Introduction of participants. A glance at the meeting agenda.
  1. Mr. Husberg (TG OSH Chair, Finland)briefed the meeting about the NDPHSand BSN status as of May 2012. Key points: NDPHS ‘Health at work’ strategy (2007); approval of the 2 projects, namely ‘Analysis of occupational health services systems’ and ‘Advanced training of occupational health professionals’;theme 2012: ‘Mainstreaming OSH into public health’; Project ILO/RUS/09/02/FIN;
  1. Ms. Eicinaite-Lingiene (Lithuania) delivered the presentation on the comparative analysis of the practical set-up of occupational health services (OHS), their structure, content and engaged professionals in selected NDPHS countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Norway, Russia, Germany and Poland).Key points:The tool of the research - the questionnaires; the questionnaire (Model-I)was prepared after analyses of the international and national OSH legislation, OSH services establishment policy, main functions of OHS specialists (the poll was performed in June-August 2011); the questionnaire (Model-II)was used for preparation of database and primary analyses of the data received. Using the Model(II) all the received information was generalised and the report of analysis primary data was prepared. The said primary reports were sent to the participating in the research countries for information check-up. The revised country analyses reports were received from 8 participating countries by the end of 2011.

Discussion: All the participants agreed that the main gained results were:

analysis of general and specific legislation and models of occupational health services in the NDPHS countries;

Analysis and comparison of funding, accreditation, enforcement and control of implementation of OHS in the NDPHS countries ;

Comparative analysis of existing practical set-up of occupational health service systems, occupational health teams, professionals and their main activities;

The survey “Situation analysis of existing OHS systems in OH&S”, funded by NDPHS, contributes to the implementation of the NDPHS “Health at Work” Strategy, item 3 on occupational health services.

Mr. Kurppa stressed differences in the organization of OH services in various NDPHS member countries. In particular, he informed of the ‘Healthy investment’ concept in Finnish OSH policy.

Mr. Vanadzins raised a question of the level of qualification of OH professionals.

Mr. Rudakov agreed to update the report with information on the ratification of the ILO conventions Nos. 161, 187 by 8 selected countries.

Mr. Husberg gave a piece of advice on improving of visibility of the analysis made by means of EXCEL software.

Follow-up:

-the analytical report should be updated and polished and then send out to the selected NDPHS countries for final feedback (June-July 2012);

-the layout of the presentation ought to be improved (June-July 2012);

-a 2-day training course ‘OSH development strategy at the national level. Practical aspects of social partnership in the OSH field’ will be organized jointly by ILO, WHO and BSN/NDPHS in Vilnius (October 2012)

  1. Mr. Ivars Vanadzins (Latvia) delivered the 2 brief presentations, namely: i) on the goals and results of the OH training course organized in Riga on 18-20 January 2012, and ii) on the main goals of the planned OHS conference to be held in Riga on 6-7 December 2012.

Follow-up:

-the next training on OH services is likely to be organized in the roundtable form in Saint-Petersburg (October 2012).

  1. Mr. Marek Maciejowski raised a question of financial discipline inusing allocated NDPHS funds and delivering actions.
  1. Dr Rokho Kim delivered the presentation ‘NDPHS project: Healthy lifestyles in healthy workplaces’ Key points:the evolution of ‘health and safety at work’ concept; WHO Global Framework of Healthy Workplaces; WHO’s holistic framework for action; proposed new OSH TG project structure and objectives of the action, target groups, location of actions planned. Expected results: i) evidence-based policy recommendations for preventing and controlling non-communicable diseases (NCDs) at the workplace setting and ii) NDPHS Position Paper, “Healthy Lifestyle in Healthy Working Conditions”.

Overall objective of the project is to promote health and wellbeing of the working population.Specific objectives are:

(1) To provide evidence-based policy recommendations on promoting health, wellbeing and work ability of the working population through “whole-of-government” and “whole-of-society” approach.

(2) To reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases through “health in all policies” approach and the workplace interventions.

Discussion within TG OSH: possible funding of project activities (EU/Sweden); project structure.

Follow-up:

-WHO/Europe is to update the project structure;

-Members of TG OSH are expected to select reliable participating institutions in appropriate countries.

  1. Mr. Marat Rudakov presented the main achievements of the ILO OSH project in NW Russia in 2011 as well as the actions planned for 2012. The project was awarded ‘The NDPHS labelled project status in 2011.

Discussion:Mr. Kim suggested underlined importance of the implementation of the achievements at the level of entire Russia as well as in several other NDPHS countries. Mr. Husberg stressed that the project gained both quantitative and qualitative results (for ex., changing of OSH paradigm in Russia from compensation system towards culture of prevention; recent changes in labour legislation).

Follow-up:

-The ILO project will contribute to the Inter-regional OSH conference ‘“Perfecting of the regional OSH management system with regard to international experience’ in the city of Vologda on 30-31 May 2012;

-The training module on strategic planning in the OSH filed should be finalized by the ILO project in 2012.

-The project should assist in disseminating and implementing gained results at the federal level of the RF.

  1. Conclusions and final remarks.

- the next editions of the NDPHS Newsletter will focus on OSH, distributed in end August

- the occ health system analysis will be finalised during summer and presented in the next meeting

- the tentative plans for occ health training in St Petersburg and Vilnius will be finalised before the holiday period and promotion started after the holidays

- a funding request will be made to the Swedish Institute for the policy paer on “Healthy lifestyles in healthy working conditions”

- TG OSH will participate in the Working Life Conference in Oct 2012 in Sweden

The next meeting will take place jointly with the BSN Annual Meeting in SPB 1-2 Nov.

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