The committee considers and reports on matters affecting the health, safety and welfare of people at work and the practice of occupational medicine in industry and allied occupations.
The committee also advises the BMA on the implementation of health, safety and welfare legislation. Plus other aspects of occupational health as they may affect its members and their working environment.
Our priorities
To get all working people access to occupational health services
At ARM 2023 a motion was passed to push for an occupational health service with universal access for all workers, and free at point of service. We continue to lobby the government to fund training programmes for sufficient occupational health specialists, as it does for all other medical specialties in the UK.
Ensuring the future occupational health workforce to enable universal access
There is a dire shortage of specialist occupational physicians, due to an ageing workforce and a clear lack of training opportunities. The occupational medicine workforce has been steadily declining since 2009.
However, as there is no legal obligation on the state or employers, to provide an occupational health service, neither party has an incentive to finance training programmes for occupational health professionals. We hope to fix this by lobbying for occupational medicine to be included within the medical school curricula, which may encourage more doctors to enter the profession.
COVID-19
The OMC continues to help ensure the best assessment and protection of BMA members from COVID-19 and related risks, and hence to reduce risks to patients and a better service for them.
We are actively contributing to the UK COVID Inquiry to ensure that crucial lessons are learned and implemented. We will continue to feed into the UK COVID Inquiry, and continue work on other relevant aspects of COVID, including documents such as Reducing infection risk in healthcare settings.
Promoting the specialty
The expertise of specialist occupational physicians is vital to ensuring healthy working environments and staff safety at work. An important part of our work is to actively promote the occupational medicine specialty with external stakeholders.
The occupational physician
This guide aims to formalise the guidelines and advice that the BMA has offered to its members, to Government departments and to other organisations on matters affecting occupational health.
Read the occupational physician guide
GPC Negotiations and Occupational Health
OMC are working with the General Practice Committee England (GPCE) on building occupational health provision, with a view to providing general practice OH support UK wide.
Fatigue
OMC is concerned about NHS clinicians who are sleep deprived. Fatigue is recognised as a contributory factor in a range of adverse outcomes including driving accidents resulting in morbidity and mortality. It also presents a danger to patient safety. OMC is lobbying for the "too tired to drive" provisions, which require employers to provide appropriate rest facilities or cover the cost of alternative arrangements for safe travel home, to be applied around the UK.
OHP Job Plans
Job plans are relatively common but not exhaustively applied and there is no requirement in the commercial sector to have one.
The following motion was passed at ARM 2024: ‘the BMA to take a policy position in which consultant occupational physicians working outside the NHS are supported to have job plans with equivalent protection to those of doctors working in the NHS, including a balanced working week of DCCs and SPAs’.
Use our example job plan as guidance for employers and employees which covers positive and negative aspects of the job.
Long Covid claims
The OMC is here to support the health, safety and welfare of people at work – including doctors. The committee provided support to our members through the pandemic and now, to continue to promote the health and safety of doctors into the future, we are making available some funds to support Long Covid personal injury claims.
The OMC have assisted, via internal BMA structures, to release a fund to pay towards court fees for doctors (based in any UK nation) to issue personal injury claims related to Long Covid, following an initial infection contracted at work. The criteria for consideration is as follows, you must:
- be a BMA member
- have had your case assessed by a law firm as having greater than 50% prospects of success
- have had after the event insurance requested and denied
- and there must be a strategic value in the pursuit of the claim.
Please note that we cannot guarantee at this stage that every individual who is eligible will receive funding towards their court fees.
If you think you meet the criteria for this support, please contact us at [email protected]
Our people
Chair: Dr Kathryn McKinnon
Our meetings
- Friday 3 October, 10:30 - 15:00, in person at BMA House (with VC option)
- Friday 30 January, 10:30 0 15:00, virtual
- Friday 10 April, 10:30 - 15:00, virtual
Take part in one of our free courses designed to give you the right skills to:
- break down equality and inclusion bias (CPD-accredited)
- value difference and inclusivity
- live our BMA behaviour principles.
Elections
Election to OMC is closed.
How to join
There are many advantages to becoming involved in our committees. You can actively influence BMA policy-making and negotiations, represent your colleagues' voices and develop your leadership skills.
Each committee has a few routes to becoming an elected member. In the case of the OMC, this is:
- Seats/term - every year, elections for four seats on OMC take place for a one-session term.
- Timeline - the nomination period opens a month before ARM and voting closes a few days after ARM.
- Eligibility - all BMA members can stand for election but only ARM delegates can vote.
Of the nominees, BMA council elects a further three seats for a one-session term.
The election section below is kept up to date with details about any running elections, so make sure you keep checking it throughout the year.
Our work 2015-2021
The OMC has written a number of reports including:
Cognitive enhancing drugs and the workplace (2015)
Read our report on healthy individuals using pharmacological cognitive enhancers without a prescription for non-medical purposes.
Read cognitive enhancers report
Alcohol and drug dependency in the workplace (2016)
Our report aims to provide practical advice to medical professionals, employers and employees to help understand and deal with the effects of alcohol and illicit drugs at work.
Ageing and the workplace (2016)
This report was written to meet a clear need expressed by occupational physicians for information to help them deal with questions they face regularly in practice from both employees and employers as a consequence of the UK workforce getting older.
Staff screening and treatment after infection outbreaks (2019)
Screening of healthcare workers as part of managing an infection outbreak may occasionally be advised by an OCT (outbreak control team). Our guidance summarises the ethical principles and legal framework that apply.
Read infection outbreaks report
Rest, recover, report (2021)
The OMC also contributed its expertise to the BMA report: Rest, recover, restore
Get in touch
If you have any questions or would like to find out more about the work of the OMC, email [email protected].
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