Occupational Health is a distinct branch of preventative health care, which works to promote health in the workplace and forms part of the overall health and safety management system, focusing on the management of work related health risks. This can include the prevention of work/study related ill health, facilitating rehabilitation after illness and injury, and promoting physical and mental wellbeing. Occupational Health provides advice to all levels of the College.

“Dedicated to the promotion of wellbeing for all in a safe and healthy working environment.”

Queen Mary has appointed a new company, OHWorks, to provide occupational health services to our staff and students (primarily medical and dental students). OHWorks is a specialist occupational health provider with considerable experience of delivering these services to universities.

Employees can contact the OH team by emailing qmulstaff@ohworks.co.uk
Students can contact the OH team by emailing qmulstudents@ohworks.co.uk

The role of an occupational health service

Occupational health teams keep people well at work and during their studies, both physically and mentally. Occupational health services will help keep our staff and students healthy and safe and manage any risks that are likely to give rise to work or study-related ill health.

If you have concerns about your health and how this is impacting on your work, or, as a line manager, if you have concerns about a team member, then seeking occupational health advice may help.

OHWorks’ experience

OHWorks has vast experience of working for public and private sector organisations, including universities, NHS trusts and local authorities. OHWorks is a SEQOHS-accredited occupational company, which means it has been assessed and inspected by the Faculty of Occupational Medicine and found to be a “Safe Effective Quality Occupational Health Service”. The SEQOHS accreditation scheme is managed by the Royal College of Physicians on behalf of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine.

Please find below details of core services and how to access them.

Occupational health referrals

Members of staff or students may be referred to the Occupational Health Service for specialist advice regarding health issues affecting work or study.

Staff and students referred to occupational health will be contacted within two working days and offered appointments on dates within five working days of being contacted.

The Queen Mary Human Resources Partnering team can provide advice on making a referral and advice to assist you with managing health issues in the workplace. You can find contact details for your ER Manager on the HR website.

If you are a manager and you need to refer an employee to occupational health, please use the Occupational Health Dashboard.

This will take you to the Dashboard where you should click the ‘Request Access’ button. The Account Number is 424, and please use your University email address. Once you have sent the request you will receive a log-in user name and password and you can progress to make the referral.

While staff are no longer need to complete an individual health assessment when returning to campus Occupational Health will continue to carry out risk assessments for those in the high or very high-risk category so if staff have previously been in this category and remain concerned about working on campus they should re-do the Covid on-line health assessment form. Managers should state "Covid-19 health assessment" as the reason for referral to ensure these referrals are processed as quickly as possible.

Health surveillance

Health surveillance is a system of ongoing health checks. These health checks may be required by law for employees undertaking certain roles.

OHWorks’ skilled team of nurses and physicians can meet all the University’s health surveillance needs, providing testing in spirometry, audiometry, hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) as well as many types of specialist health surveillance. For more details, please contact qmulstaff@ohworks.co.uk.

Medical and dental students

Students requiring immunisations or blood tests in order to be cleared for clinical placement will be offered an appointment with an OH Nurse Advisor at a specified time and date, arranged after discussion with the student to confirm their availability.