Understanding Occupational Health
Occupational health services support your employees if they have been off sick for a long time, are returning from sickness absence, or are struggling to continue working due to injury or ill-health. It helps to promote health and wellbeing and has an emphasis on maintaining a positive relationship between employees and their work.
Management referrals can be seen by specialist occupational health nurses, occupational health physicians, and occupational health physiotherapists. At Bespoke Wellbeing, we provide occupational health assessments for musculoskeletal injuries and conditions by our senior team of physiotherapists.
Following an assessment, referrals generate a formal occupational health report answering your specific questions and giving you recommendations or workplace adjustments that would support your employee in the workplace.
If you have not made an occupational health referral before and would like to speak to a member of our team, please email us appointments@bespokewellbeing.co.uk.
What to expect
Occupational health physiotherapists have specialist musculoskeletal knowledge to assess, diagnose, and give work specific advice based on the injury or condition.
During a consultation, the physiotherapists will complete the following tasks:
- Diagnose the musculoskeletal injury
- Reassure and give injury specific advice and exercises
- Give recommendations and adjustments for the workplace
- Identify any barriers that may affect a return to work
- Communicate with managers / human resources
Making a good referral
When you make a referral you must ensure that you have spoken to your employee about why you would like to offer the support of Occupational Health and get their consent to send to us.
Once you have consent, it is then easy to complete our referral form where we will ask you which specific questions you would like us to consider and answer in our Occupational Health report back to you.
These referral questions are really important to ensure that you get the most from your referral to our services. Here are the typical questions we are asked:
- Is the employee fit for work?
- Are there any work factors contributing to their health?
- Will the employee be able to give reliable and consistent attendance?
- Are any work adjustments recommended?
- Is the employee considered under the scope of the equality act?
- Does the employee require any treatment?
- Are any risk assessments recommended?
Following the assessment, you will receive our recommendations in a formal management referral report back to you. We may recommended one of our other services but we would explain the clinical justification and always await your authorisation before starting. Commonly recommended services include ergonomic assessments and physiotherapy for staff.