On 7 Feb Joseph Melling asked about status and prestige of occupational
health practice:
Because in the last 50 years, UK has had a well developed service for
treating sick people (ie the NHS), preventative medicine and health
promotion, which are the main functions of occupational health have taken a
bit of a back seat. UK did not sign up to the ILO Occupational Health
Services Convention of 1985 which would have committed the State to
"formulate, implement and periodically review a coherent national policy on
occupational health services" presumably because it was felt that the
medics who make sick people better in the NHS would take care of all that.
It is only since the Tories' Health of the Nation, and New Labour's Our
Healthier Nation that we have started looking at the impact of work on
health as a national policy.
The book "The Social History of Occupational Health" edited by Paul
Weindling has essays about some of the battles between Governments who
always wanted the most work at the lowest possible cost from workers; and
trades unions and occupational health doctors who also wanted workers'
health and safety to be looked after. It is a very readable book, possibly
out of print. My favourite essay is around a report on women working in
the munitions industry during the First World War.
Bashyr Aziz
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