A day in the life of a Senior Occupational Health Nurse
We recently met up with one of our Senior Occupational Health Nurses, Jo Rimmer, to find out more about her role within RPS and the interesting projects she works on.
Why is occupational health important?
Occupational health helps to promote general wellbeing within the workplace and ensures that everyday work practices aren’t causing issues for employees.
When problems do arise, occupational health practitioners can pick this up early to help minimise the risk and prevent any long-term issues. It also gives employees confidence that their employer wants to look after them.
What do some of your day to day activities involve?
I mainly manage referrals, sickness absence, travel vaccinations, health surveillance and reporting. I also work quite closely with our client’s health and safety teams to support their workplace assessments and in meeting H&S requirements.
I enjoy the variety that comes with my role, because you are not just stuck doing one task day in day out. There is a lot of flexibility with either health surveillance or management referrals – each day can be very different.
What are some of the interesting projects you have worked on?
I am currently working with the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team! I am onsite 3 days a week at the factory in Brackley conducting management referral appointments, health surveillance and workstation assessments.
I also provide travel vaccinations and an annual travel health brief and travel risk assessment document for the Race Team- this is a significant and multifaceted part of the role as they travel around the world during race season. We execute this very well so that the majority of their employees are ready to travel anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat.
What do you feel RPS does especially well within occupational health?
Being able to provide a complete service to our clients. I think because RPS has access to different services all within one company, we are able to respond quickly to our client’s needs. For example, if we need to speak to a Doctor regarding an employee, they are available for a quick response.
We also have an occupational hygiene team, so if a client wants to check the work environment of their employees, we have a range of services that are easily accessible in-house. This I feel is one of the main things that sets RPS apart from our competitors.
What would you like to see developed further or improved in the field of occupational health?
One of the biggest things I would like to see is closer collaboration between GP’s and occupational health practitioners. Sometimes, a GP might issue a fit note to an employee advising they are unfit for work for a long period - from an occupational health perspective, if we are involved earlier and can work more closely with the GP, we might be able to get that person back to work faster.
Careers in Occupational Health
Are you interested in joining our occupational health team? Visit out careers page for more information on how you can be part of our team and get involved in the work that we do.
Related services
Occupational health
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Absence management
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Health surveillance and fitness for work
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