Have had my Occupational Health Assessment

slomo

Hi folks,

Well if only every appt could get sorted that quickly! Last Wed my manager said he'd refer me to occupational health and this Wed I had the report of the assessment.
Got a phone call 1st thing on Tuesday from my manager to say not to go into the office after getting my blood test done but to go the other direction and go into head office as my assessment was in the afternoon at a local hotel. I've never had anything like this before but the chap doing it was really nice and friendly and easy to talk to just asked how the RA and vasculitis was affecting my work and general day to day life. Asked for a brief medical history - any family members with same thing etc Asked about my medication and when I was seeing the rheumy again (couldn't give a definite answer to that one as have spent since Sunday trying to get hold of rheumy OP to tell them I'm on holiday on the appt date they've sent and I need it changed. Have e-mailed them and left phone message and still not heard anything back!) I asked the Occ Health guy if he was medically trained - I did say I was sorry it sounded rude asking but I didn't know - and the answer is they are.

The report suggests micro breaks and possible redeployment to some back office work if things are still as difficult for me and it's possible to arrange that. He also said he believes I would be covered under the equality and discrimination act. I had know idea what that meant for me and work, but a work colleague who is also a union rep told me that one thing that can be done is that it can mean work could extend the absence triggers so I wouldn't necessarily be called in by absence management people as quickly as I would otherwise be. So all in all quite please with that
Last laugh: the meeting was held in a lovely hotel with about 10 steps up to the front door and the meeting itself was held on the 2nd floor - no lift in the hotel!! (I did get a phone call next day apologising about that. I had to go home after the meeting as my knees were killing me and the right one was up like a balloon)

slomo

Slosh

Glad it went well. I have had several OH appointments over the past couple of years and always found them very helpful. My absences from work, if linked to my OA and other problem are discounted in terms of the number of absences that act as a trigger for attendance meetings. Just make sure that when completing your return to work form you make this clear.

stickywicket

That sounds like a good appointment. Every little helps

dibdab

Glad it was a positive appointment for you, hope that it works well in practise. I certainly found Occ Health were helpful and positive, and it made a difference to the management in my workplace.

Deb x

slomo

Thanks for the comments everyone.
I'm keen to know what my manager makes of the report. It came in so late in the day last week that he just had time to e-mail it to me and to comment that he would be in touch about it.
He remarked that we had already discussed working in the back office when he did my appraisal shortly before my Occ Health referral. I'm going to try to make sure that he realises that they are 2 different things.
His comment about back desk working was made to each of us customer facing staff - not really a discussion, more a management instruction to each of us, to physically move ourselves into the back office if it was quiet customer-wise and do backroom work there instead of staying at the customer desk and doing it. It is quite possible, even likely, that a side effect of this would be that I find it beneficial to the old joints but it is not, in my mind, the same thing as Occ Health saying that if I find customer facing work too much for me, they should consider if it would be possible to redeploy me to a back office position. Could be interesting! Still the though of my holidays will sustain me - only this week to go and then free for 2 weeks Yipeeeeee!
(I actually don't mind my work and I've had a lot worse jobs over the years but I am really ready for a break away from it all. Do you think I could persuade the RA and vasculitis to stay at home?!)

slomo