Musculo-Skeletal Disorders or MSDs are top of the pops for work related ill health and absence. What are they? Should you be worried? This episode is for anyone who has responsibility for health and safety in the workplace.

There are examples of types of MSDs and what jobs or tasks can cause them plus the two main ways of dealing with them.

For more information and links mentioned in this podcast go to the associated blog posts on Working Well Solutions

NICE (National Institute of Health and Care Excellence) defines a clinical audit as follows:

Recently I’ve had several requests regarding how to audit occupational health practice. The first question to me was 'How on earth do you audit an occupational health service which has never had an audit before? Where do you start?'

Here I take you through a simple and pragmatic way of auditing an occupational health service to improve consistency and quality over your whole organisation or maybe just one process which needs modifying.

Audit is a daunting task if you’ve never done it before but if you use a stepped approach, it becomes simpler. The hardest part being the planning. If you’ve audited nothing before in your organisation, start with something simple and small.

The fours steps are:
1. Planning the audit, 
2. Doing the audit, 
3. Checking against the standards and 
4. Action, that is, correcting all the things you've discovered aren't compliant with what you wanted.

To illustrate my four step approach, I will go through a clinical notes audit because every OH service keeps clinical notes and, being a paper exercise, will not interfere with day to day work.

• How to decide what needs auditing
• Find out what you need to do at each stage and why 
• Issues to avoid and problems which can occur
• No long words to confuse you
•  Links to research and the checklist from my website blog which accompanies this podcast: 

Download the Free Notes Audit Checklist here
Read the full article which accompanies this podcast with much more detail here.

Further Reading/Resources to help with Audit:

• Faculty of Occupational Medicine advice on Data Protection in Occupational Health
• See also SEQOHS website for accrediting your OH services at www.seqohs.org
• Audit and audit cycle for Medical Professionals on the Patient website
• Best Practice in Clinical Audit from Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership
• Introduction to Clinical Audit in OH from my website
• A brief summary of Plan, Do, Check, Act from the HSE

Early on in the pandemic, speculation about how badly Covid-19 affected those from ethnic minorities was rife but once identified, interest and how best to assess the risk and protect these workers started.

There is a great system which many use and I share it here. Just to be clear I am not claiming any glory, this system is not mine to claim, but this article spreads the word (especially to my worldwide audience) and helps those from less informed backgrounds of where to start with these complex ethnic minority risk assessments.

ALAMA Website

Most clinicians use the ALAMA guidelines.

1. First to assess risk (based on gender, body mass index, race, pregnancy, and underlying health conditions)
2. Quantify individual risks into high, medium, low risk of having a serious effect on the worker (vulnerability).
3. In each risk group there are simple control methods to adopt.

To do the assessment, it helps if you have medical or nursing training because sometimes you have to make a clinical judgement based on conflicting factors. But if you have nothing else - follow the guidance.

To read the associated blog: The Easy Way to Protect your Ethnic Minorities from Covid19

Or if you just want the links - look down

Links to Resources

• ALAMA website
• Downloadable questionnaire on the ALAMA website
• NHS Infographic "impact of Covid19 on BAME staff in NHS
• Cohorting patients in a clinical setting
• Pregnancy
• Advising of current guidelines to protect yourself and others, e.g. social distancing, hand-washing, self-isolating
• Personal protective equipment at work from the HSE
• Get a free NHS test to see if you have corona virus
• Test and trace procedures how it all works
• Advice for different workplaces about working safely from Gov UK
• BMI Calculator
• NHS Risk Assessment Guidance
• Read the article from the Civil Service: Please don't call me BAME or BME (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic)

The Corona Virus pandemic has affected people in many ways - physically, mentally and emotionally. Me too. If you are experiencing effects of this then you might want to consider building up your resilience with tools and insights.

In this episode I recommend my go-to resources that have helped me over the years and may help you too.

This week, I saw recommendation on Quora as a life changing book The Inside Out Revolution and it reminded me of a book I'd read 15 years ago.  A hardback. I couldn't find it. So I looked through my Kindle library and found the ebook version: 'Somebody Should Have Told Me' by Jack Pranksy.

I cannot believe I forgot this book because it started me off on my journey of mindfulness and meditation. Since then, I have read over a hundred. 

Find out the other resources for mindfulness and resilience in the show notes on my website here:  🌈 And remember to keep safe.

The most popular article on my blog is where I describe reflection using my adapted Gibbs model for reflection and a worked example.

It also advertises my Nurses Reflection Diary Workbook which is available from Amazon and my best-selling book.

To add to my worked example I add another one today - regarding an incident between me, my manager and a sales executive where I worked at the time. I call it... 

Dog Walking.

To read a more comprehensive analysis of the incident and relevant links read my blog post (which accompanies this podcast) called Reflection Practice for Nurses: Worked Example 3.  Click this link.

Resource List

• NMC Code of Practise on-line
• NMC Guidance Sheet - Reflection Practice
• Reflection 1 Worked Example: Night Duty Drug Round
• Reflection 2 Worked Example: My Infographic Error

Nurses Reflection Diary - Revalidation Workbook by Jane Coombs available from Amazon for only £4.99 - buy your copy today

I’ve worked in occupational health (OH) for years and advised many companies. Some businesses put OH in the H&S department and some in HR; only once was I in the Facilities department which was strange. You would think it wouldn’t matter where occupational health and wellbeing services might sit; but you would be wrong. There are distinct differences on how each function operates, and it isn’t just about the personality of those in charge.

HR and H&S have different priorities and given higher authority in the business depending on the industry. For example, when I worked in Constructing Better Health (CBH) – I worked with H&S professionals but in local government and the NHS it was always HR.

Listen to this podcast to see what I (an experienced OH practitioner and qualified safety professional) think is better and why.

Other references:

• High Speed 2
• Health and Safety at Work Act
• The Good, the Bad, and the Smugly - Behind the Doors of Occupational Health - true stories of my time in OH, available to buy from Amazon

Read the script to the full podcast on my blog

In an effort to attract and keep staff, many companies are considering whether to invest in a medical treatment service for workers.

This podcast gives the pros and cons of whether to take this step and my experiences and opinion.

There is also an accompanying blog on my website Working Well Solutions and the link to this is here.

Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast and a thumbs up would be welcome too.

Many people asked me about my podcast and how I started. This episode describes the main steps of my progress from deciding on the title to some tips on how to avoid common mistakes.

There is also a full blog to support this episode on my website but, as promised in the text of the podcast, here are resources I use (no affiliation with any):

• Audacity
• Yetti Microphone
• Pop guard for microphone above
• ITunes link of top ranking podcasts on their site
• Buzzsprout (my hosting site) with loads of help
• Canva
• Free images: Pixabay or Pexels
• Colours and branding for your company (article)
• Where to get free music for jingles (but check the small print)

For more information and description go to my website blog on Making a Podcast

Don't forget to subscribe!

This podcast covers a presentation I made to the Society of Occupational Medicine earlier this month.  I look at the types of OH services and resources needed to make a succinct, relevant, safe and punchy report.

Don't go for long templates - managers are busy people. The report needs to be in everyday language and follow a chronological or logical order. Don't show off by using long medical words and try and write like you talk; that way the report is most useful to all readers, whether the worker, the manager and the client, in fact, everyone who might have access.

It's good to consider resources when preparing a report and there are many productivity apps that I use (no affiliations with any links) for mind mapping and grammar and even ease of reading.

Read the Blog too

My website has the full text of this podcast and loads more (but necessarily in the same order).  There is also a link to the full PowerPoint presentation with my talking notes too.

Click here to go to my page.

Also

• British Dyslexia Style Guide 2018
• Plain English Campaign website
• Review of 24 mind mapping apps and software tools,

I'd love it if you subscribed to my podcast too.

Have you got a new job and been asked to go for a medical?

Employment law in the UK makes it illegal to use medical tests or questions as a means of stopping candidates from getting a job.  Health enquiries should follow an offer of employment (subject to medical and references).  Many are confused about when to ask capability questions because if say, a crane operator can’t stand heights then the interviewer (and the candidate), need to explore this from a practical point of view. Because of the difficulty employers have in recruiting and acting fairly in this area guidance is available from The Equality and Human Rights website that sets out exactly what you can and can’t discuss in job interviews.

Unfortunately changing the name and the process has not taken away the belief that the OH professional decide whether people can or can’t do a job, that is, applicants are fit or unfit for work. This is not the case, in my career having done hundreds; I can tell you that only one or two applicants were ever medically unfit for a job.  Most applicants are fully fit for the job and some need minor adjustments e.g. spectacles or blood pressure medication.

WHY DO PRE-PLACEMENT HEALTH SCREENING:
Establishing baseline health records (useful for measuring health when starting a new job and before exposure to health risks)

• Identifying reasonable adjustments to the work or the working environment
• Explaining specific health risks and requirements for each job
• Complying with health and safety procedures e.g demonstrating how to insert ear plugs, reporting health problems caused by work
• Changing of work role e.g. from a warehouse operator to a forklift truck driver where the health requirements may be more onerous e.g vision, hearing
• Exposing new starters to the health and safety culture of a business
• Assessing specific groups of workers for extra precautions e.g pregnant, young workers, asthmatics

Read the full transcript and an example of a simple health questionnaire on my website: Working Well Solutions Ltd: bit.ly/2ElVCGF

Further Advice and Reading

• Telling people about your disability or health when applying for a job :bit.ly/2EkYbZF
• How to report questions about your health or disability before you are offered a job :bit.ly/2EkBk05
• Reasonable adjustments for those with health conditions or disability :bit.ly/2EhcDS7