Monitoring Your Workforce
Health Surveillance
Monitoring your workforce is extremely important, not only can it save your business time and money, but it also saves lives and keeps your employees and the public safe.
In the interests of safety, medical examinations and/or health surveillance are legal requirements within some industries and the guidance issued by the Health & Safety Executive must be adhered to by all UK businesses.
Health surveillance at work requires employers to put in place systems to raise awareness about work-related ill health and for everyone involved to be able to watch out for early signs of potential problems. These systems can range from simple methods such as a visual check for skin damage in workers exposed to certain chemicals to more involved checks and medical examinations.
Typical areas for surveillance include:
- HAVS (Hand Arm Vibration/Vibration White Finger)
- Noise Exposure
- Working at Night
- Lead Level Testing
- Skin Assessments
- Respiratory Screening
- Working at Height
- Confined Space Worker Medicals
- Exposure to solvents, fumes, dust or other substances hazardous to health.
In order to determine whether you should introduce health surveillance in your company, you should conduct a risk assessment to identify the health hazards, who is at risk and take steps to control the risk. In situations where risks remain, you will not only need to take steps to further reduce the risks but you may also need to introduce health surveillance procedures.
Healthcare Connections can help you to meet the standards for the required health screening of employees including those set by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) . We have the experience to be able to help you at every stage of the process including advice on writing your policy documents and following this up with monitoring and periodic review, as well as advising on other aspects such as risk assessment, improving management systems and RIDDOR.
Please contact us for all of your specific surveillance requirements or for a complete evaluation of the necessary health screening you should be performing.