I couldn't agree more Anne. One of my sites asked for me to see employees on the lines of the governments 'Know your numbers' campaign. Every employee I saw already knew that their blood pressure was normal and had a normal
Bmi.
The HR manager who asked for it is morbidly obese and refused to have his done.
Happy Christmas Everyone
Sue
Sent from my iPhone
> On 22 Dec 2017, at 12:04, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Hello Wendy
>
> I believe that this is an excellent intervention within the construction
> industry as I consider them a particularly vulnerable group because of a
> myriad of work and social factors. Not only do they work in an industry with
> a range of hazards, many construction workers are an itinerant workforce and
> may not have a consistent GP. Many are from overseas and English may not be
> their first language which again puts them at a disadvantage for many other
> health education initiatives.
>
> Having said the above, generally, I find it difficult to support these
> "exec-medical' type interventions as they generally do not target the people
> who most need it and as you say it is the worried well who participate.
>
> Best
> Anne
> Anne Harriss
> Professor of Occupational Health
> LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY
>
>
>
>
>> On 22/12/2017 11:29, "Wendy Jones" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Good morning
>>
>> I am interested in the current perceived value of health checks, mini medicals
>> etc. When I started in OH many years ago these were often ‘exec medicals’;
>> there were many downsides, not least the fact that they targeted the worried
>> well, rather than those who were really at risk; that they found anomalies
>> that turned out to be benign but caused a huge amount of anxiety in the
>> meantime; and that there was potential for clashing with GPs who took a ‘you
>> found it, you deal with it’ approach. To me, their main benefit was the
>> opportunity they provided for engaging with people and discussing the things
>> that really worried them, rather than the testing itself.
>>
>> These days the NHS do a lot more health screening than they used to, targeted
>> mainly at the over 40s. In construction, mini-medicals are very much in the
>> ascendance – sometimes done by nurses, sometimes by OH technicians, sometimes
>> by bought in services. They are seen as a really good thing by the employers,
>> H&S professionals and providers, and generally quite appreciated by the
>> workforce as well (who are a high risk population for lots of social and
>> practical reasons). I hear lots of ‘impact stories’ about people who have had
>> major problems identified as a result of general health checks.
>>
>> Can I ask what other industries are doing? Is construction ahead of or behind
>> the curve in this respect?
>> And can anyone point me towards the current evidence for the value of
>> prophylactic health checks for various conditions?
>> And happy Christmas 😊
>>
>> Wendy Jones
>> Researcher in Construction OH, Loughborough University
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
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