Could universal OH be the key to Covid recovery?

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At best, only half of UK workers have access to occupational health support. With the Covid-19 pandemic illustrating the need for health and wellbeing expertise, could massively expanding provision be one answer? Nic Paton reports on a recent Society of Occupational Medicine summit that made the case for universal access to OH.

When the NHS was formed back in 1948, then health secretary Nye Bevan complained that the only way he had been able to achieve the Attlee government’s transformational goal of creating a free-at-delivery public health service had been “by stuffing the doctors’ mouths with gold” or, in other words, allowing them to continue to see private patients alongside NHS.

Bevan may not have liked it, but it was a compromise that got the formation of the NHS over the line. However, as Dr Steve Boorman, chair of the Council for Work & Health, perceptively pointed out at a recent SOM (Society of Occupational Medicine) summit, Bevan’s achievement left an increasingly yawning gap.

“I think one of our mistakes goes all the way back to 1948 when we didn’t make occupational health part of mainstream care,” Dr Boorman explained,  “I think now is the moment to be starting to be more joined-up in our approach [and] building it into our NHS.”

Bevan’s omission was perhaps understandable in the context of an economy that at the time was heavily based around large factories and manufacturing sites, where employers were able to deliver (and fund) a relatively static works’ nurse or on-site doctor-based model themselves.

The problem is, this model doesn’t work now and, in truth, probably hasn’t for many years. According to the government’s own estimates, barely half of UK workers have access to occupational health provision. Even this is probably over-optimistic, as a recent analysis by occupational physician Dr Paul Nicholson has contended, arguing OH access within the UK may be more like 30% to 34%.

Campaign for universal access

Yet, the past year-and-a-half of Covid pandemic has highlighted the value of occupational health provision, support and intervention as never before. As new SOM president Dr Jayne Moore emphasised: “As a specialty, we’ve come to the forefront in the last 18 months, supporting businesses to return to work and guiding on risk assessments. We have a unique oppor