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What exactly
is Occupational Health?
Understanding
the relationship between health and the workplace is fundamental
to the success of your business. We can help you with this
by tackling any health-related problems that might arise. Some
services such as drug and alcohol screening can be critical
in protecting the safety of your staff and members of the
public, to avoid injury or business loss and to comply with
western best practice. What’s
more, with our comprehensive range of occupational health
services, we can tackle the fundamental health issues to help
you reduce sickness absence and create a healthier, more productive
working environment. A
well-administered occupational health service will deliver
these benefits:
Expert advice that’s easy
to access
Organisations
are increasingly turning to GMC Occupational health for professional
guidance on a wide range of health issues arising from the
workplace, including:
Telephone Helpline
Wherever
your human resources team is located, staff can call our helpline
for consistent advice, professional support and practical
solutions to pressing workplace health issues. Just a few
of the HR challenges with which we can help, include:
We can
visit your workplace to undertake on-site assessments
If
you have a large workforce and you want to cut the time employees
spend out of the workplace to a minimum, we can come to you
- either on a fixed contract basis, with occupational health
practitioners permanently on-site, or visiting periodically
with an ‘ad hoc’ service. Whatever
your needs, we tailor our service to your requirements.
Cost-effective solutions
Since
we take a consultative approach, the size of your organisation,
your location(s) and the climate of your industry are all
carefully considered.
In
this way, we can provide highly personalised, cost-effective
and convenient solutions, which can be tailored to your needs,
whether the services you require are on-site, part-time, or
on the telephone. GMC
can look back on nearly 40 years of providing a high standard
of medical services in Dubai which extends into a fully developed
Occupational Health Service.
A selection
of our services
Pre-placement health
assessments
These
reduce the risk of mis-matching person to task and demonstrate
your compliance with western best practice such as the Health
and Safety at Work Act, the Disability Discrimination Act,
working time regulations and many others, including specific
industry standards. In
most cases, a GMC Occupational health questionnaire-based
protocol is ideal, as it is quick and easy to administer.
We also offer a pre-placement medical examination service
- either standard or executive. Pre-placement health questionnaires
can be completed on paper or online through our corporate
extranet. Health Profile Questionnaire
(HPQ)
This
is the starting point for a cross-company screening programme
and it is particularly suitable for companies with a large
workforce spread over multiple locations. The
HPQ provides an easy, low-cost way to audit the health of
your staff. Your employees will benefit from learning about
their health risks and how they compare with the norm for
their age, together with advice on leading a healthy life. Your
company will benefit from a cumulative health profile of the
workforce, split by department or location, to show you where
health promotion or stress management may be needed.
Health profile questionnaire
plus
If
you have 300 staff or more, we can come to your premises to
conduct a variety of health tests to complement the health
profile questionnaire, like blood pressure, cholesterol and
lung function. We can also run health promotion days focusing
on specific health issues to meet your needs, such as smoking
cessation, diet and exercise. Risk assessment and
health surveillance
According
to Western best practice, employers are legally obliged to
provide a safe workplace. The best way to ensure you are meeting
your obligations is to conduct regular risk assessments and
offer a programme of health surveillance appropriate to the
needs of your business. For example, we can assess and advise
on the risk associated with work caused by improper design
and use of workstations. GMC
Occupational health will give you a sound independent recommendation
on your health surveillance requirements - including the type
and frequency of assessments - and then help you implement
the programme throughout your workplace. All health surveillance
activity is fully documented to comply with best practice. Psychological services
If
you are applying Western HR standards in your business, you
have a legal duty of care to your staff that includes their
mental wellbeing, not just their physical health. Our range
of psychological services will complement your occupational
health programme by demonstrating this and simultaneously
minimising the risks of employee litigation. These services
include employee assistance programmes providing, stress management,
training programmes and critical incident response.
Stress risk assessments
Our
stress risk assessment is a valuable auditing tool to help
you comply with health and safety regulations. We can accurately
identify problem areas and create a focused plan for effective
management of stress in the workplace. It also serves as a
benchmark to measure the success of any interventions.
After
completion, a report is produced highlighting areas of risk
and giving recommendations in order of priority to reduce
organisational stress. These may include developing and publicising
a policy on mental health provision, and support services.
Sickness
absence management and rehabilitation
If
you want to get your staff back to work as quickly and safely
as possible, early intervention is essential.
Once
an employee has been off sick for more than six weeks, the
problem is often compounded and the chances of returning to
work at all are significantly reduced. Either
as part of your integrated human resources system or triggered
by a request from you, our trained occupational health practitioners
can contact the employee to ascertain the required level of
support in the community. By working with the employee, the
GP and the human resources team, a care pathway can be mapped
out to ensure that employees are returned to health, work
and efficiency at the earliest date.
Our
skilled and experienced team will work with you, in the context
of your business culture and with your business priorities
in mind, to resolve even the most difficult and sensitive
cases, where fitness to work is an issue.
Where funds (medical insurance or other) permit, the employee may be offered fast-track treatment through our GMC Occupational health Centre, to accelerate this process.
A proactive
approach to absence management
For
companies with 500 or more employees, we can record total
absence with a software tool. This allows us to download and
import data in real time, daily. The system is activated by
trigger points which are aligned to your absence management
policy, and set so that individual cases can be identified
and resolved quickly and effectively. Our occupational health
experts proactively manage these cases.
As well as finding and monitoring problem areas where absence occurs, the system records the data you need to indicate the cause, so that together we can take prompt action to reduce absence and drive your costs down.
Independent
medical opinion
With
sickness and absenteeism costing British business over £11.6
billion each year, according to the Confederation of British
Industry, it is not surprising that more and more organisations
are taking action to control these costs. Most
organisations aim to promote and maintain a healthy workforce,
but there are times when a referral to a specialist occupational
health practitioner is essential to support the management
of sickness absenteeism or the identification of work-related
health problems. The
‘management referral’ process is appropriate where, in the
case of an employee’s sickness absence or deteriorating performance,
and the need to comply with the Disability Discrimination
Act (DDA), you need to know:
Where a consultation is needed, this can be arranged promptly our GMC Occupational Health Centre.
Promoting
good health
We
offer a wide range of health education programmes, to help
you comply with western best practice, and to help people
make decisions about important lifestyle issues. Subjects
include:
We
can increase awareness of issues through the use of posters,
staff newsletters or your intranet site. We can also offer
specialised training programmes to support current and future
investment in staff.
Advice and policy formulation
We
can advise on how best to audit your health risks to help
you develop appropriate policies both to comply with western
best practice and demonstrate your duty of care.
Workstation
assessments
We
can reduce your company’s exposure to the effects of musculo-skeletal
issues. This could involve giving display screen workstation
advice, fast-tracking problem cases, advising on changes of
duties or the purchase of ergonomically correct furniture.
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An
occupational health situation is one where the level of health
of the workforce is impacting negatively on the operational
performance of the business.
