Hi All,
I would add that you could deal with the disgruntled by selling them the concept that by performing health surveillance based on personal risk will allow more time to be focused on proactive wellbeing. That way they will still get what they perceive as a perk in a different format.
As we all know lots of employees struggle with any change and it takes time to win their trust…..
When I came here a few years ago I had an issue with a man performing footcare due to alleged poor PPE. Once investigated it was a service for a minority who had it as a perk and who didn’t all even wear the PPE. I dealt with the PPE and stopped the footcare and replaced it with an Osteopath which they all now buy into as the risk for the MS issues was far greater than the foot issues. Company was happy as it saved money and employees happy but OMG they went wild to start with….time is a great healer….stick to your guns if you believe it is the right thing to do.
As a mother of 3 children, at times, they had meltdowns on me, ‘cos its soooo unfair!’, but I still did what I did as I knew it was right…..
I sometimes feel I have replaced my children with some employees!
D
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carr Barnes
Sent: 19 November 2013 00:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [OCC-HEALTH] Unnecessary "Health Surveillance"
Hi
Sounds like one of the major issues here is that the employee's perceive it to be of value to them them and their disgruntlement at losing this perk will be rippling upwards with the recipients (managers, H&S etc) wanting to pass the buck so are looking to you to make it (the disgruntlement) all go away for them. The employees perception of "need" will be very different than OH's perception and no amount of talking about "risk" will alter their perception... in fact it is likely to just make them dig their heels in harder and protest their argument more and in composing their responses they will not even hear what you are saying .. you are literally wasting your breath.
So what's the solution? Up to the employer who foots the bill... they either continue as is knowing it is not effective OH and taking risk and cost that comes with that (as you and others have outlined e.g DPA, diversion of OH resources), they take the hard line now and just say "it was what it was and now we are stopping it and c'est la vie", or they come call it what is is i.e. lifestyle screening ... and pay for another company to come in and do and separate it out from OH completely. Either way Sharon I don't think there is much more that you can do except keep pushing the employer to take ownership and make a decision one way or another ...all you can do is ensure it is an "informed" one.
On 18 November 2013 22:15, Liz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Agree with all that has been said so far.
Karen briefly touched on this but I will elaborate ... Under the Data Protection Act, you must not be gathering personal or sensitive information for which you have no use or valid reason (e.g. by doing health surveillance and collecting health data on those who have no health risks): http://www.ico.org.uk/for_organisations/sector_guides/health
As you will know, you also need to have the employee's consent and in order to obtain this you need to inform them for what purpose you are collecting their health data ... I believe that if the consent is not properly "informed" and for a relevant purpose, it is not valid.
Thanks Pauline, I have been banging the OH drum as you describe below, and I`m not exactly backwards in coming forwards as many will know!
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 19:43:30 +0000
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [OCC-HEALTH] Unnecessary "Health Surveillance"
To: [log in to unmask]
I would fully agree with you on this one, I think your client needs to re-education on what OH is , if they have been doing all the "nice to have" screening what screening are they missing that should be done?
what are the cost implications of having those folks away from their work for screening that they don't need?
what health education could be put in to reduce sickness? the questions go on, I have worked in this type of environment where there views were based on the old "factory nurse" standard which whilst were ok at the time were not preventative strategies for health.
their industrial hygiene monitoring should support your rationale for change( i.e. no exposure)
A client I work with has got into a habit of doing "health surveillance" of sorts with no clear rationale for doing it. There is no policy (as in written down) , it has morphed from what was considered "nice to have" I think about a million years ago (possibly by OH) into being activities that create a real drain on the OH dept with regards to man hours spent doing it, recording stats which have no real meaning etc. I have asked H&S to explain why such activities are undertaken, they don't really know apart from the fact that its all traditional, rather than being necessary as a result of risk assessment.
Policy is being rewritten, for the sake of the OH dept resources I drew a line in the sand of a date after which we would not do any more "HS" without a clear indication as to why. The time previously spent could be diverted to other tasks that I would consider to be of more importance. This was communicated out to the relevant employee groups. I now have regular communication from the disgruntled "insisting" fairly robustly that I do the various tasks as they feel their health is in jeopardy if they don't have the HS/screening. I have explained the reasons why etc etc but there is a fair amount of excess disgruntlement going on, and responding politely to the emails is now possibly taking more time than doing the HS to be honest. However - I feel we should stick to our guns.
Examples of these activities include annual audiometry for staff not exposed to noise anywhere near 1st action level if at all, but have been subject to audios because they use head sets eg akin to a call centre environment. I have pulled a lot of previous audios to find them all within normal limits, with no discernible changes to hearing over the time that they have had audios done. I have also canvassed similar organisations to find that only one organisation that I know of ( a police emergency response centre) doing audiometry for such employees, they are in the process of phasing it out and even with their current processes it is no where near annual. There has been regular communication about the changes, to both groups and individuals. I wrote a report for the senior managers involved to explain the rationale for my thinking.
I feel fairly justified in my stance, and feel I have covered all the bases that I could think of but it has set me to wondering what other colleagues would do in similar situations? One of my problems is that we are relying on others to write/distribute the new policy and this has been delayed. I really don't want to roll over (as I see it) and continue doing unjustified work for the sake of a quiet life, but would appreciate the views of others.
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