Growing Occupational Health

In 2021, in response to the People Plan, NHS England and Improvement launched a national, long-term initiative, the Growing OH programme, to develop and empower NHS-delivered OH services to be integrated, strategic, and proactive system partners.

The programme started with a review of occupational health in the NHS, which NHS England and Improvement commissioned Dr Steve Boorman CBE to carry out. The initial research for this discussion document, with OH colleagues and experts in the field, highlighted 10 key areas for service improvement.

NHS England and Improvement began to develop the vision for the Growing OH programme, in collaboration with Dr Steve Boorman CBE and Dr Shriti Pattani and key strategic partners including:

The Growing OH programme appreciates that the capacity of OH services are stretched due to vital efforts supporting the pandemic, but also recognises the finite window that we have to support positive change. With this in mind, we aimed to start small, with the intention of learning and growing together over time.

It is being delivered in two phases. Phase 1 and Phase 2, running throughout financial year 21/22, are focused on paving the way for this ambitious programme, in partnership with OH people, leaders, and service users.

To help make this vision a reality, NHS England and NHS Improvement has been and continues to work with OH and Wellbeing professionals, system leaders, academics and service users including employees and managers to co-design a Growing OH Roadmap and collaborate via a series of engagement activities.

Learn more from the Growing OH programme leaders

Dr Shriti Pattani is an accredited specialist in Occupational Health working for London North West University Hospitals NHS Trust as their Clinical Director. Shriti also works as a General Practitioner and is the former Chair of the NHS Health At Work Network.

Shriti shares how key stakeholders are participating in Growing OH involvement events.

Dr Steve Boorman CBE is a leading national OH expert, author of the 2009 Boorman Review of NHS Health and Wellbeing and Chair of the Council for Work and Health.

Here Steve calls on all OH professionals and system leaders to realise the potential of OH professionals as strategic and integrated partners. 

The developing Growing OH programme

As the Growing Occupational Health programme develops, updates and information will be included on the NHS Health at Work Network website, included in the monthly bulletins and shared via our social media channels.

If you’d like to share a key piece of work, best practice, or learning that others can benefit from, please share this with our team at: growing.ohwb@nhs.net If you’d like to take part in engagement events running in 2022, please visit the Growing OH - Phase 2 page.