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Each month, the NHS Health at Work E-bulletin highlights the latest developments in health and wellbeing. The electronic bulletin is available to registered website users and NHS Health at Work Network members.  Please encourage your colleagues to register to receive it regularly. Register here.

The NHS Health at Work Network brings together all OH teams providing health and wellbeing services to NHS OH staff.  It is dedicated to providing consistent, high quality health at work services to all NHS staff through collaborative working.
Please let us know if there is anything you would like to see in future issues of the bulletin or if you have news to share with colleagues by emailing wendy.coleman@nhs.net.

Issue 62 – 31 July 2012

This issue contains:

1. Guidance on rapid access for NHS staff
2. NICE infection control guidance
3. Results of survey on core services quality indicators
4. MoHaWK – get ready for round 2
5. ‘A Future NHS Occupational Workforce’ – workshop report
6. Accreditation update
7. Template SLA available 
8. Research on work at night and breast cancer
9. London business case for health and wellbeing
10. NHS Health at Work web watch
11. Health for Work Adviceline update
12. August/September 2012 Research Plus

The next issue, Issue 63, will be circulated on 28 August 2012.

1. Guidance on rapid access for NHS staff

NHS Employers has published new guidance aimed at supporting NHS organisations in implementing rapid access to treatment and rehabilitation for NHS staff. Rapid access is a system which will offer rehabilitation and occupational health treatment for NHS employees with the view to facilitating a return to work which is as fast as practicable and reasonable. This guidance is intended for trust boards making decisions about how to manage rapid access services for staff in their organisation. More information available here.

2. NICE infection control guidance

NICE has updated to its guidance on infection control (CG 139: Prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections in primary and community care).

It is estimated that 300,000 patients a year in England acquire a healthcare-associated infection as a result of care within the NHS at an estimated financial cost of £1 billion. Healthcare-associated infections cause many deaths, and can exacerbate existing or underlying conditions, delay recovery and adversely affect quality of life. Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteraemias and Clostridium difficile infections are recorded as the underlying cause of, or a contributory factor in, approximately 9000 deaths.

The updated recommendations and sections are clearly highlighted in the new guidance document. Most of the guidance has limited direct relevance to occupational health. However, key updates from an OH perspective include clarification of the need to:

• provide appropriate gloves and suitable personal protective equipment (PPE), train workers in the use and disposal of sharps
• wash hands after removal of gloves
• cover cuts and abrasions with waterproof dressings
• avoid polythene gloves for clinical interventions.

3. Results of survey on core services quality indicators

NHS Employers commissioned research through NHS Health at Work on developing evidence based clinical quality indicators for occupational health. The project team were asked to develop clinical indicators and case studies for each of six core services (prevention; timely Intervention; rehabilitation; health assessments for work; promotion of health & well-being and teaching & training).

The full report on evidence-based indicators is available here.

In May NHS Health at Work Network members were consulted on the usefulness of these indicators. OH units were asked about the importance of each potential indicator, the ease of measurement, and priority it should be given. A report on this consultation is now available.

Some of the proposed indicators are already included in the national audits led by the RCP’s Health & Work Development Unit. Some were included in data collection Round 1 of the MoHaWK clinical registry and a few are suitable for inclusion in future rounds. One of the indicators has not been widely supported.

Both reports are also available on the MoHaWK homepage.

Feedback on these indicators is welcome and can be provided through the MoHaWK “Contact Us” page.

NHS Employers will be issuing a report to trusts shortly summarising the indicators.

4. MoHaWK – get ready for round 2

The highlights of the first round of MoHaWK  – the new clinical registry for occupational health are available here.
 
The MoHaWK system allows you to benchmark and demonstrate improvement – key requirements of all occupational health teams. All members of NHS Health at Work Network teams have free access to the MoHaWK system.  Round 2 is also being made available free to non-NHS occupational health providers.
 
Data collection for Round 2 is in September and data entry will take place in October 2012. We will be emailing all NHS OH units with full details in early August. If your registered MoHaWK user or your OH unit lead has changed please contact wendy.coleman@nhs.net to make sure we have the correct email address/contact for your team.

Non-NHS OH providers that would like to participate in round 2 can register their interest through the same address.

5.  ‘A Future NHS Occupational Workforce’ – workshop report

‘A Future NHS Occupational Worforce’ is a report of a workshop held in March this year, for representatives from OH organisations and professional bodies.  It marks a key milestone on a journey towards creating an occupational health workforce that can deliver improvements in the health and wellbeing of NHS staff and, ultimately, better care for patients.

The workshop highlighted the urgent need for change in occupational health in the NHS if it is to deliver the benefits of the health and wellbeing agenda. We need to design services that reflect the needs of the working age populations served. This will require reconfiguration of services, ensuring that the training and education of staff is high quality and that skill mix is consistent with continuous quality improvement.

There was a clear message that the future of the NHS occupational health workforce cannot be considered in isolation from the development of occupational health generally. This will require strong leadership within occupational health and engagement with key stakeholders, such as Health Education England. We are in the early stages of planning a further workshop, which will consider the implementation of the recommendations and develop a project plan for the delivery of key objectives.

6. Accreditation update – free training days

Congratulations to 3 more NHS OH teams who achieved accreditation this month: Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Aintree Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Barts Health NHS Trust.  To see how you are doing compared to the rest of your region, click here. 

If you are still working towards accreditation and haven’t attended a SEQOHS "How to Pass Your Accreditation" training day, there are still a few sessions left:
Tuesday 7 August - Southampton
Tuesday 14 August - Liverpool
Wednesday 15 August - Birmingham

The training is free for all NHS OH services and runs from 10.30 - 15.15.  You may send more than one delegate if you wish, and can attend even if you have already attended a previous SEQOHS training day in London.

Please contact vernaire.bass@rcplondon.ac.uk to book your place, or if you have any questions.

7. Template SLA

The template SLA developed by NHS Plus and endorsed by NHS Employers is now available on a new webpage for all users.  Details of earlier guidance from NHS Employers to help NHS organisations commission an effective OH service are also available here.

Your Occupational Health Service aims to ensure that NHS organisations are clear about what to expect from their OH service. It also provides guidance on how to monitor that service, and what to do with the information to ensure the service delivers the best support to staff.

Commissioning Occupational Health Services will support commissioning teams in procuring services from multi-disciplinary occupational health providers that offer a range of skills and expertise.

8. Research on work at night and breast cancer

A consensus report was recently published by the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health, which gave evidence-based options for preventive actions for night workers who have survived breast cancer. 

Advising women with a history of breast cancer that they cannot work nights has not been the UK stance to date (more information available here) and the conclusions of this report could have a significant impact on the NHS workforce. 

NHS Plus has therefore brought the report to the attention of NHS Employers to seek clear guidance for NHS organisations.

9. London business case for health and wellbeing

Greater London Authority has recently published ‘London's business case for employee health and well-being’ which may be of interest to you.  Although it refers to London, it is a useful summary of research on health work and wellbeing in general, containing a summary of evidence on the effectiveness of health and wellbeing interventions in the UK, and a selection of case studies on health at work initiatives with results quantified in terms of benefit/cost ratios.  

10. NHS Health at Work web watch

Accreditation Examples - A quick reminder that we have collected examples of the documents that you need to submit to demonstrate that you are meeting the accreditation standards. These are available here. 

If you have already been accredited and are willing to share examples of the evidence that you submitted please contact andrewgilbey@nhs.net.

11. Health for Work Adviceline update

Proud to be named by the Government as one of three key steps to reducing the negative impact of mental health problems

July has been an exciting month. Following on from the publication by the Government of the Mental Health Implementation Framework, the Government made another exciting announcement.

The Framework sets out what organisations can do to achieve the six high-level objectives of the mental health strategy ‘No Health Without Mental Health’ (which aims to achieve parity of esteem between mental and physical health services) and the Government called upon organisations to take three key steps in order to improve the mental health of their staff, one of which is the use of the services offered by the Health for Work Adviceline:

1 - Make this year the ‘Time to Change’: Make a public commitment by signing their organisations up to the ‘Time to Change’ campaign to end mental health discrimination. 

2 - Get some ‘First Aid’ training in mental health: Most organisations have an employee trained in first aid. Appointing someone as a mental health expert for staff or training a number of people in awareness would make a huge difference. Training is available from a variety of organisations.

3 - Call for help: Use the free services offered by the Health for Work Adviceline (call 0800 0 77 88 44) to speak to an occupational health professional.

12. August/September 2012 Research Plus

The August/September 2012 Research Plus edition is available on the NHS Plus website.

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