Occupational health in education
Occupational health in the education sector is focused on:
- Fitness to teach - Pre-employment fitness to teach assessments are required for all those coming into contact with young persons and vulnerable adults.
- Sickness absence management - Exposure to welding fume can cause respiratory disease such as occupational asthma, lung cancer and other short and long-term illnesses.
- Stress - Workload, relationships, job role, change and mismatched expectations can lead to frustration, angst, and stress.
- Vocational respiratory hazards - Exposure to animal and avian danger, welding and soldering fume, wood dusts, cement, textile fibres, flour dusts etc can cause respiratory disease such as occupational asthma, lung cancer, and COPD.
- Vocational skin hazards - Prolonged exposure to water, use of occlusive gloves, working with solvents, paints, cement, foods, hairdyes or regular handwashing can cause skin problems.
- Manual Handling & Awkward Postures - Heavy lifting, poor postures, prolonged static, repetitive or forceful movements can cause musculo-skeletal disorders.
Our fleet of mobile screening units are hygienic, spacious and fitted with an audiometry booth to promote an optimum environment for professional and convenient health assessments on your site.Â
The vehicles and office-based clinics have been adapted to ensure a highest level of COVID security.
Our clinical teams are highly trained to perform, interpret tests and feedback immediately to your employees so they understand the value of their health check and can take proactive steps to manage their personal health.
Health Surveillance is required if:
- Work is known to damage health in some particular way and it is reasonably likely that damage to health may occur under the particular conditions at work.
- There have been previous cases of work-related ill health in the workforce/place.
- There is a reliance on PPE e.g. gloves or face masks as an exposure control measure.
The need for health surveillance should be identified by your risk assessment process.
Examples of where health surveillance is appropriate under the criteria in COSHH Regulation 11(2)(b) are:
- Where there have been previous cases of work-related ill health in the workforce/place;
- Where there is a reliance on PPE, e.g. gloves or respirators, as an exposure control measure; e.g. printers wearing gloves to protect against solvents used during press cleaning, or paint sprayers using two-pack paints wearing respirators to prevent asthma. Even with the closest supervision there is no guarantee PPE will be effective at all times;
- Where there is evidence of ill health in jobs within the industry; e.g. frequent or prolonged contact with water (termed wet-working) causing dermatitis in hairdressers and healthcare workers, or breathing in mists from chrome plating baths causing chrome ulcers in platers.’
- We strongly recommend avoiding blanket screening for all employees as it can provide misleading management results and waste money that could be spent on improving controls.
Free Health Risk Assessment
Tailored health surveillance and screening
Peritus Health Management is quality accredited to the Faculty of Occupational Medicine’s SEQOHS standards and provides appropriate and tailored fitness for work checks, sickness absence management and health surveillance and health screening at our site or yours including:
- Risk-tailored robust, online pre-employment health assessments.
- Occupational health assessments.
- Counselling.
- Audiometry for Noise-Induced Hearing Loss.
- Breathing surveillance for asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases caused by welding & soldering fume, plaster, moulds and spores, animals and birds, nail varnishes and other sensitisers and irritants.
- Skin checks for dermatitis caused by wet-work, metalworking fluids, oils, greases, solvents, frequent handwashing, hair dyes.
Peritus Health Management’s integrated approach to health risk management provides a comprehensive service managing all these areas competently and professionally.
