Many employers may offer a range of wellbeing services to their employees to help them understand their own health and wellbeing, make better lifestyle choices and remain as fit and as active as possible, often in conjunction with national campaigns e.g. diabetes awareness week, menopause awareness day, time to talk day.
Wellbeing sessions, which are run by experienced occupational health clinicians, may supplement the healthcare provision from your GP or other healthcare professionals.
Employers may request that one of our clinicians attends the workplace to undertake a
“Know your numbers” day, where the clinician will take an employee’s blood pressure, measure their height and weight and calculate their body mass index (BMI), and measure their blood glucose (sugar) level, as well as provide general healthy lifestyle advice.
Alternatively, they may offer employees a
“Health Risk Appraisal” appointment (of approximately 20 – 30 min duration) with an occupational health nurse who will guide the employee through a more detailed health risk questionnaire, offering guidance and lifestyle advice appropriate for the individual based upon the answers provided. Typically, employees may talk about or wish to discuss issues including weight loss, smoking cessation, mental health and resilience, physical activity, current sleep quality and/or fatigue. Although the clinician may make some brief clinical notes in case they need to speak with you again in the future and these will be kept securely like any medical records within the UK no report is generated for your employer.
In both cases, with your consent and where it is deemed clinically appropriate, you may be signposted to speak with your GP or another relevant health professional for further support and should your current health issues be impacting upon your work or vice versa (your work is impacting your health) a referral to occupational health for a formal consultation may be recommended.
It is important to recognise that wellbeing sessions are not delivered by primary care clinicians, they are not able to make diagnoses nor prescribe medication but they will provide an opportunity for you to discuss any health-related concerns with a occupational health clinicians who can guide and nudge you to taking steps towards improved health and wellbeing, which may help reduce the likelihood of future ill health or the duration or frequency of future absence from work.
All wellbeing sessions are voluntary, there is no legal requirement for you to attend, however feedback from employees who have engaged with the service we is extremely positive with many employees feeling it was “like a health MOT”.