Health Surveillance
Common Questions

Health surveillance is a series of routine checks which are undertaken on employees who are exposed to certain substances in the work place.

 

The substances may be in a gas, vapour, solid or liquid form, and is know to cause possibly health ill effects in employees if exposure is not controlled or limited.

 

Health surveillance is a routine health check which is undertaken by a suitable qualified individual.

 

This may involve a routine questionnaire, health check such as a lung function test, which involves a series of breaths into a tube and monitoring machine which will measure lung function.

Other routine checks may involve hearing tests, which involve listening to a series of sounds, and recording when they are heard by the employee.

 

This should record the hearing capacity of the individual.

Other type of health surveillance may involve daily self checks of skin, if you are working with oil, or diesel, and weekly checks by a competent person, which could be your manager.

 

Any differentiations from the normal should be reported to your manager and Occupational Health.

 

In some type of Industry, Health surveillance may involve routine blood tests to ensure work exposure to substances is controlled.  For example, if you were working with lead, then your blood would be tested periodically to check the levels of this.

 

This type of health surveillance is not routinely undertaken at the BBC.

 

Health surveillance programmes are usually run at regular intervals, according to the exposure of the substance, which has been highlighted by the risk assessment.

 

It is good practice to initiate programmes when the employee is starting employment.

 

(New starters, and do not forget the old leavers as well)!

Most Health surveillance is undertaken at yearly or some times two yearly intervals.

 

Some substances are governed by legislation when the Health Surveillance is undertaken.

 

An example of this is Isocyanates, which Control of Substances Hazardous to Health stipulate routine Health surveillance every 6 months, as well as a 6 weekly check from the initial employment check.

 

(BBC Staff should no longer be dealing with Isocyanates.)

 

Routine health surveillance of skin should be undertaken on a daily basis.

 

The need for Health surveillance should be highlighted by the risk assessment, and the responsibility for the initiation and running of the programmes should be with the manager.

 

If you are a manager, and unsure of Health surveillance is required for your are, you can contact your local safety representative, or contact BBC HR Direct.

 

To initiate Health surveillance programmes in your area, you should make contact with the Occupational Health Nurse Specialist for your area.

 

It is also advisable to contact your local Safety Adviser for the area.

 

 

Employees are always concerned about "failing" their health surveillance "test".

 

Some time individuals are nervous, and may exhibit a poor result.

 

If the result of your health Surveillance is not as good as one would expect, the test should be undertaken again, and then the individual referred to the Occupational Health Physician.

 

Adaptations should be made to your working area to ensure the exposures to certain substances are fully controlled, and that no ill effects further exacerbate any underlying condition,. An example of this is a young employee who has damaged his hearing by attending loud rock concerts, measures should be taken to prevent exposure to noise that would cause further damage to his hearing.