August/September 2021 (vol. 18/2)

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Establishing expert consensus in OH

Challenges in OH: using a pilot nominal group technique to identify expert views for managing clinical practice

Summary:

Cameron Black, Heather Gray and Sivaramkumar Shanmugam explain how a ‘nominal group technique’ was used to evaluate current challenges faced by OH departments when working with an external private stakeholder, and how to elicit expert consensus on potential solutions.

In occupational health (OH) practice, the implementation of OH contracts for provider and commissioner usually involves several stakeholders with diverging and potentially conflicting interests. A good infrastructure is needed for the consultation – and for the discussion between the stakeholders – to avoid conflict during the implementation of OH services. This is especially true as policy, information and communication technology become increasingly complex. In this article, we suggest that the use of consensus techniques – especially ‘nominal group technique’ (NGT) – can safeguard interests and provide a practical methodology with collective participation and expert judgements…

Cameron Black is a musculoskeletal physiotherapist at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust and a professional doctoral student at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Dr Sivaramkumar Shanmugam is senior lecturer in physiotherapy in the Department of Physiotherapy and Paramedicine at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Dr Heather Gray is head of the Department of Physiotherapy and Paramedicine at Glasgow Caledonian University

Author: Black C, Gray H, Shanmugam S

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Occupational Health at Work August/September 2021 (vol. 18/2) pp36-40

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