An occupational safety and health assessment is necessary for employee safety and morale, as well as for legal and financial reasons. Employers are required by law to protect their employees by instituting preventative, punitive, and compensating measures. An occupational safety and health evaluation aids in the reduction of work-related deaths and injuries, sick time, medical expenses, and disability benefit costs. It also encourages the improvement of quality, output, and profit while reducing worker migration.



The following actions are part of the occupational safety and health assessment:

  • Identifying risks and people who are at risk, as well as the reasons why they are at risk.
  • Evaluating and prioritising risks, as well as identifying the hazards.
  • Choosing preventive measures to eliminate or lessen the danger.
  • Taking action through elimination, reduction, and replacement of alternatives.
  • Monitoring and re-evaluation in order to improve further.
  • Documenting and reporting on the assessment

As you can see, the concept of occupational health spans a wide range of issues and places a premium on employee well-being. It is a two-way street that considers how a person's work impacts their health and how their health influences their employment. It is about keeping employees physically and emotionally well at work.

Access our knowledge base to learn more about mental health and well-being. We also offer a Workplace Mental Health course where you can learn more about the overall ideas of mental health and wellbeing.

A competent occupational health professional performs a medical examination on employees as part of an occupational health evaluation.

This could be a doctor, nurse, adviser, technician, or another physician with further occupational health training.

The assessment's goal is to help the employer understand what the employee requires to return to work and do the job efficiently and safely. It also tries to resolve any concerns that may lead to additional sickness absences. The assessment may suggest a gradual return to work, more referrals, adaptations (such as to their workspace), or additional time away from work.

This form of examination is not required, and employees are not required to agree to it. However, it is crucial because it can help individuals get back to work and guarantees that they receive the assistance they need to do their job. Employers should have policies and processes in place to manage sick leave and return to work. NICE Guideline NG146 provides additional recommendations on managing long-term sickness absence and job capacity.

An occupational health evaluation is a medical examination of an employee performed by a professional in the field of occupational health. It evaluates an employee's physical and emotional health and makes recommendations to their employer. It also instructs the employer on what they must do to provide a safe and healthy working environment for that individual.

An occupational health assessment's primary goal is to prevent work-related injuries. They frequently determine if an employee is physically fit for a specific job. They can also detect any pre-existing conditions that put an employee at a higher risk of specific risks.

A pre-employment health screening is a test typically performed by a health care expert to determine whether or not an employee is medically suitable for the work and the specific duties required. A routine history and physical, drug screening, and/or complete lab work may be included in the pre-employment test. Employees may also be asked to take physical ability tests to determine their ability to complete a specific task. The goal is to discover where the employee can be positioned so that he or she can perform at his or her best without risk of damage. Blood test results and other clinical data can also be used to establish a baseline at the start of a new job. This data can be used to assess changes in health status that may occur in the future.

Perhaps most crucially, the results of pre-employment physicals should be utilised to place people in jobs that are healthy for them, rather than to screen out workers for wrong reasons. The physical examination must be relevant to the applicant's employment. Psychological testing is also essential in several occupations where workers are subjected to high amounts of stress, such as air traffic controllers and police officers.

A workplace health assessment entails learning about a workplace and its employees' health. Employee health is governed by a complex set of interactions between individuals and their social, cultural, and physical settings, and it can be modified in a variety of ways. To acquire a more complete view of the health determinants, it is critical to examine employee health from a variety of perspectives utilising diverse sources of data. Reviewing health care costs, for example, will provide information on which health conditions are the largest contributors to the total, but will not provide insight into what causes lead to those conditions.