Diagnosis, care or treatment?

Summary:

There are new data protection reasons for clarifying the role of occupational health, but it would undermine the professions to say they were not integrally concerned with diagnosis, care and treatment.

Few, practitioners would argue that occupational health is not concerned with the care of workers, and most would agree it can include diagnosis, but does it involve treatment? In a letter (p.9) regarding our back pain series, an OH nurse describes herself as an ‘advising clinician’, distinct from the author of the articles, who she said was a ‘treating clinician’. OH professionals ‘do not treat’, she said. And in our previous issue, OH law specialist Diana Kloss argued that, generally, ‘OH is not concerned with treatment’¹. Does it matter? Yes, for two reasons…

John Ballard, editor

Author: Ballard J

Tags data protection DPA - Data Protection Act GDPR oh nursing records - reports

Occupational Health at Work June/July 2018 (vol. 15/1) pp03

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