Working with employers

Caring for your employees' health is more than just a legal duty: it makes for a more motivated and productive workforce.

Ensuring your staff remain fit, well and happy offers an organisation the best opportunities for continuity, productivity and development.

The OH SS offers a range of clinical and advisory services, tailored to your organisation's needs. We can help you devise effective health policies, run screening programmes and organise health days and training to meet your business needs and raise health awareness among your staff.

As in all health services, employees are entitled to expect that their health and personal details are treated in confidence. We do not pass on any health or personal details in our reports without the individual's consent.

There are, however, some circumstances where we encourage disclosure, with consent, to help assess an identified risk. This is particularly important in cases involving the care of children or other vulnerable groups.

We aim to maintain high clinical and professional standards, and to learn from the experiences of employers and employees.

We run a continuous clinical audit programme that includes satisfaction surveys from staff and managers. We benchmark our performance against that of other occupational health services by participating in MoHaWK, the NHS Health at Work Network quality indicator system.

All data in clinical audits remains anonymous, in line with national ethical standards.

All NWL services provided to commercial customers are provided through a contractual agreement with our host Trust (CNWL). We offer the following:

• One-off assessments charged per item, for example, advice regarding a member of staff who has been on long-term sickness absence.
• For small and medium-sized organisations, a retainer fee proportional to the size of the organisation is paid. This covers the costs of administration, records management, and advice to employers on occupational health issues via our duty nurse system. Other services are charged per item and paid quarterly.

For large enterprises and employers, a service level agreement will be agreed which is tailored to the needs of the organisation on a pay per volume basis.

We strongly encourage employers to make self-referral available to staff. This gives the opportunity for early intervention to resolve problems associated with work or due to ill-health. This helps to reduce and limit staff absence at an early stage. Allowing staff to refer themselves also helps them to feel valued by their employer.

If your organisation is interested in working with the NWL OH SS, please contact us for further information, including a quote.

For managers, referring staff to our services could not be simpler. We use an electronic management referral form which allows managers to provide all the relevant information about the work circumstances and reasons for referral.

We aim to send our reports back to you by email within three working days and advise on the following:

• Fitness to work
• Limitations for particular work tasks
• Defined disability within the disability discrimination provisions of the Equality Act 2010
• Reasonable adjustments needed in relation to disability or pregnancy to enable staff to work effectively and safely
• Prognosis relating to fitness to work and timescale for recovery where possible
• Opinion on whether a health condition is work-related
• Safety implications
• External support agencies
• Rehabilitation-to-work plans and alternative solutions, such as redeployment or ill-health retirement

We do not disclose personal details about an employee's health unless this is specifically requested and agreed by the employee.

We promote total transparency in all communication ensuring that:

• Employees can choose to view the report before it is sent to the employer (in keeping with GMC guidance)
• Employees and all other relevant parties, for example, human resources (HR) departments, receive a copy
• Employees are encouraged to share with their own GP / specialist / therapist

We promote the use of case management reviews by manager, HR and an occupational health clinician) and case conferences involving the employee, manager, HR and an occupational health clinician) where further joint discussion about the advice given would be helpful.

Our frequently asked questions page provides further information about referrals including our role, confidentiality, what an employee can expect when attending a health assessment and how we respond to employers.