How the NHS backlog is presenting opportunities for occupational health

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With millions of people waiting for NHS treatment, occupational health professionals can play a major role in keeping people in work and offering independent advice writes Imogen Cardwell.
The Omicron variant, and drive to deliver booster vaccinations, is causing yet more operations and routine care appointments to be cancelled, which is leaving even more employees to struggle with ongoing conditions.
According to recent research by PAM Wellbeing, 51% of employees have been affected by delays accessing the NHS, with one in 10 extremely affected by operation cancellations. With over five million people now waiting for support and many more being deterred from approaching an overburdened NHS, diseases ranging from cancer to diabetes are also going undiagnosed and untreated.
In response, occupational health services are playing an increasingly proactive role in filling this void and keeping people in work.

Prevention before cure

It’s long been known that the sooner employees can be supported to nip health problems in the bud, the quicker and less costly it is to help them recover. However, it’s taken the tipping point of the NHS crisis for employers to stop using occupational health purely to manage sickness absence in favour of proactively helping people to stay healthy, avoiding absence in the first place.

Many employers are now working with their occupational health providers to help employees avoid preventable diseases, such as cancer, stroke, diabetes and coronary heart disease. These non-communicable diseases have subtle, if any, symptoms in their early stage, meaning blood testing is often required to detect any sign of abnormality.
Pressure on frontline NHS services from Co