SURVEY: Occupational health and the COVID-19 pandemic, part 1

An exclusive survey for Occupational Health [at Work]

Summary:

Occupational Health at Work presents the findings of an exclusive survey on how occupational health professionals are managing their work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Occupational health (OH) can play a vital role in supporting employers and workers during the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). But everyone’s experience of the pandemic is different; while some OH professionals are working to help keep essential workers safe, others have been furloughed because their employers have closed their premises following government advice. Occupational Health at Work has carried out a survey of practitioners’ experiences of working during the pandemic to examine how it is affecting them and the services they provide…

Some of the key findings of this survey include:

■ COVID-19 has had a massive but polarised impact on the workload of OH professionals – 33% of respondents report that workload has increased dramatically, while 35% say it has fallen significantly

■ Face-to-face work has fallen dramatically, while most practitioners report spending less time doing case management, fitness-for-work or pre-employment heath assessments, or undertaking health surveillance and statutory medicals

■ Respondents working for commercial OH providers report that the amount of chargeable work they are doing has fallen significantly

■ The most pressing concern among OH professionals was given as being unable to provide appropriate advice or answer the questions they are being asked by employers and employees because the scientific evidence was not yet available…

Occupational Health at Work is extremely grateful to all the OH professionals who took the time to complete this valuable survey. All survey respondents receive a PDF of the survey and the prize draw was won by Helen Walters, an OH nurse from Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire.

Dr John Ballard is editor of Occupational Health [at Work]

Author: Ballard J

Tags COVID-19 oh nursing oh physicians pandemic

Occupational Health at Work June/July 2020 (vol. 17/1) pp17-28

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