Programme Action Group 5: Support

Scope

Appropriate information, advice and support (e.g. helplines, information centres or providers of occupational health support) needed to be available and provided by competent individuals and organisations. Some interested parties also needed help to recognise when they should call on other people’s skills to find a solution to a problem, and how they could go about obtaining this support.

Delivery of the information, advice or other support needed to be imaginative and innovative (e.g. using state-of-the-art methods such as developing IT), as well as making sure that the right support, in the right format, was delivered to the right people at the right time.

Aim

The aim for this programme was that by 2010 everyone has access to the appropriate occupational health support by:

• identifying the information, advice and other support required to help people contribute to the strategy’s targets;
• setting up suitable frameworks and delivering this information, advice and other support to the right people; and
• raising awareness of the existence of these frameworks and what they can deliver to those who need the support.

The following were priority areas:

• identifying and taking forward feasible options for action from the Occupational Health Advisory Committee report on improving access to occupational health support;
• examining the feasibility of new legislation on the accessibility and availability on occupational health support in the context of the whole strategy;
• identifying local gaps in the provision of information, advice and other support and then taking the required action to plug these gaps;
• ensuring that support is provided by professionally skilled people when appropriate;
• raising awareness of who can provide information, advice and other support on occupational health to communities;
• developing one-stop shops where people can go for information on occupational health issues, 24 hours a day (e.g. online or interactive, possibly linking with the new Small Business Service);21 and
• ensuring that all information, advice and other support is provided in the right format for the different target audiences.

Copies of the action notes from the Compliance PAG can be obtained by contacting the:

Securing Health Together Team
8SW, Rose Court
2 Southwark Bridge London,
SE1 9HS.
E: mail: oh.strategy@hse.gsi.gov.uk
Tel: 020 7717 6088.

The members of the Support Programme Action Group were:

Chair

Ewan MacDonald, Salus Occupational Health & Safety

Members

Dave Bennett, ASLEF
Jo Berriman, Royal College of Nursing, Occupational Health Manager, Sainsbury Plc
Gail Cotton, Association of Occupational Health Nurse Practitioners
Nicky Hoyle, Kirklees Metropolitan Council
Christine Hunter, General Manager, Occupational Health Parkside
Jacqueline Jeynes, Forum of Private Business
Elizabeth Johnson, Department of Health - NHS Plus
Sue Shilabeer, Back Care
Miriam O'Connor, Health Education Board for Scotland
Peter Rimmer, Head of DIAS, Health & Safety Executive Susan
Scott Parker, Employers Disability Forum
Lawrence Waterman, Sypol Limited
Mick Williams, Keighley Worksafe
Steven Blake, Cabinet Office
Dr David Beaumont, Independent Occupational Health Physician

This Programme Action Group has now completed its discussions and the final report [PDF] [30kb] is available.