OH urged to use spending review to lobby for extra cash

To continue reading please register or login to your OHW+ account.

Occupational health practitioners are being urged to lobby their MPs ahead of next month’s comprehensive spending review to try to encourage the Treasury to unlock extra investment in the profession and workplace health.

The call by SOM, the Society of Occupational Medicine, came at a summit held this week on the need for universal access to occupational health within the UK.

The comprehensive spending review is due to take place on 27 October, along with the autumn Budget, and will see chancellor Rishi Sunak outline governmental spending plans for the next three years.

Opening the online summit, SOM chief executive Nick Pahl highlighted the government’s response to the Health is everyone’s business consultation from the cross-departmental Work and Health Unit published in July.

The fact departmental budgets are being set next month meant there was therefore an opportunity for OH to make its voice heard in Westminster.

“This is an important time politically as departments get their three-years settlements from the Treasury for the comprehensive spending review. What I would encourage throughout the afternoon is for you to contact your local MP to encourage them to encourage the Treasury to sympathetically look at the request from the Work and Health Unit at the Department for Work and Pensions on what is a good programme of action that does need to be funded,” Pahl said.

The summit included speakers from Finland, the World Health Organization and the European Union, among others, and looked at the case for having, and the value of, much more comprehensive occupational health coverage.

Pr