The FOM AGM, Awards and Annual Dinner will take place at the Royal College of Physicians, London on 26 September 2024.

This year’s Trainee/Portfolio Pathway Conference will be held on the 24^th April 2024 at the Chesford Grange, Kenilworth ^[2].

FOM members who are trainees, or members interested in following the Portfolio Pathway (formerly called CESR), can attend this event free of charge. Places are limited, so please register below if you would like a place. Please note that we charge £40 for a no-show or cancellation within 2 weeks of the conference.

 If you aren’t a member of FOM but would like to attend the conference, you can either join as an Affiliate member (£95) which includes a free place plus other membership benefits, or you can pay a day delegate fee of £95. To arrange this, please contact payments@fom.ac.uk ^[3] .

To book your place, please click here ^[4].

The programme for the day is as follows:

10:00 – 10:30	Registration Refreshments
10:30 – 11:00	Welcome and Updates Prof. Ira Madan, Academic Dean, FOM Merv Young, Head of Assessment and Quality, FOM
11:00 – 12:00	Dr. Simon Unter – Dermatology Consultant Dermatologist, Warwick Hospital
12:00 – 12:30	Further Updates Dr Lisa Curran, Director of Training, FOM Dr Jon Spiro, Portfolio Pathway Lead, FOM
12:30 – 13:30	Prof. Vinod Patel – Diabetes and Work, and Ramadan Professor – Diabetes and Clinical Skills, Warwick Medical School Consultant in Endocrinology and Diabetes, Acute medicine, and Medical Obstetrics, George Eliot Hospital, Nuneaton
13:30 – 14:30	Lunch and Networking
14:30 – 15:30	Prof. Ian Brown – Epilepsy and Occupational Health Honorary Consultant Physician in the Co-Morbidities of Neurological Disorders, OUH Visiting Professor, Institute of Food Nutrition and Health, University of Reading
15:30 – 16:00 (Close)	Dr. Ali Hashtroudi – Updates and Brief Q & A Session Head of National School of Occupational Health
16:00 – 16:10	Dr. Daniel Border Trainee Rep – Closing remarks

 

 

The Faculty of Occupational Medicine is delighted to announce that Dr Robin Cordell will be the next President of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine.

 Dr Cordell brings a wealth of experience to the role. He is in day to day practice as an occupational physician and Chair of a social enterprise delivering occupational health services and providing specialty training, with five GMC approved posts, and also supporting doctors progressing towards CESR. He has held senior medical leadership roles in Defence, been a past President of SOM, and is a director of the Council for Work and Health. He is an examiner for the DOccMed and MFOM Part 2/AFOM, and led on the recent SEQOHS Standards Review for the Faculty.

 Commenting on his appointment as President Elect, Dr Cordell said:

 “I feel privileged to be asked to represent the Faculty later this year in what continues to be a time of some challenge and significant opportunity for our specialty, and the real potential for enhancing health and work nationally.  I will seek to continue the momentum built by Steve Nimmo and his work with the other colleagues who have been engaged at a senior level in Government and the NHS, as well as work to build the occupational health workforce. In my view the Faculty is central not only to increasing capacity, but also in making a critical contribution to assurance of the quality of services required to meet this need.  I see an inclusive and collegiate approach as essential, including building on the DOccMed workforce, and the new DipOH Prac, and working with the full breadth of those engaged in health and work.”

As President Elect, Dr Cordell will work with the current President to ensure a smooth handover of presidential responsibilities when Professor Steve Nimmo demits office at the FOM AGM on 26 September 2024.

The annual scientific meeting, held this year in Belfast 20 and 21 June, is open for registration.

The conference website has been updated to include the full programme, social events and workplace visits. These include a visit to Translink’s £1.7 million Training Academy in south Belfast, a guided tour at Titanic Distillers and visits to Coca Cola and Spirit Aerosystems.

Full registration includes participation in all sessions, poster viewing, access to the exhibition, delegate materials and catering during the conference including an invitation to the welcome reception on-board SS Nomadic, moored next to Titanic Belfast (but places must be pre-booked) on 19 June. Tickets to attend the Gala Dinner on 20 June can be purchased separately.

Recognising financial and cost-of-living pressures, SOM and FOM have kept the registration fees for 2024 at the 2023 level.

The updated website also has information on the venue location, hotels and things to do around Belfast. It’s set to be an exciting conference in a vibrant and historic city.

Register here: https://www.occupationalhealthconferences.com/registration/ ^[7]

The Faculty of Occupational Medicine (FOM) has two roles in our Examinations and Training Department.

Please see a brief outline of each role with links to find out more, download the job description and person specification and apply:

Examinations and Training Manager – to provide leadership to the staff team as well as supporting senior colleagues to ensure the high quality delivery of our examinations.

https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/8673916/examinations-and-training-manager/?LinkSource=HomePage ^[9]

Examinations and Training Coordinator – to support the administration and delivery of our examination training provision.

https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/8675918/examinations-and-training-coordinator/?LinkSource=HomePage ^[10]

Both roles are hybrid, based partly at our office in central London and partly from home.

Cigarette smoking is responsible for around 75,000 deaths every year in the UK, and a quarter of all cancer deaths. Smoking is the single most important preventable cause of death, ill health and disability in the UK.

The Faculty of Occupational Medicine strongly supports the proposed measures to reduce the number of young people taking up smoking and helping existing smokers to quit.

We also strongly encourage occupational health professionals and workplaces to take every opportunity to assist current smokers to quit smoking.

The Government Command Paper setting out further details can be found here: Stopping the start: our new plan to create a smokefree generation – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) ^[12]

The 2023 Trainee Conference of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine took place at the Royal College of Physicians in London on the 21st September.

Thank you to all our speakers, trainees and members who joined us for an enjoyable and informative morning of talks and networking.

Our speakers included Prof. Ian Brown who discussed the link between diet and brain health and Dr. John Sterland who talked with FOM trainees about shaping stress consultations. FOM Fellow Dr Nadia Sheikh ran an excellent session on writing guidance for healthcare professionals and FOM Honorary Fellow Dr Vaughan Parsons offered his practical advice to trainees on presenting research.

Here are some photos from the event.

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The Faculty has launched new evidence-based guidelines that aim to assist healthcare professionals in the workplace.

They have been produced in an easy-to-read, concise format and the first two guidance documents concern the management of upper limb disorders ^[16] in working-age people and supporting individuals back to work after Carpal Tunnel Release ^[17] surgery.

These guidance documents have been accompanied by the production of a document summarising the occupational health principles ^[18] for healthcare professionals.

Consultant physician Dr Nadia Sheikh has led on this work for the Faculty, supported by the FOM’s Academic Dean Professor Ira Madan. Dr Sheikh said: “We want to provide concise evidence-based guidance for healthcare professionals who are assisting patients with work-related concerns.

“We also hope the occupational health principles document will provide the underpinning principles of occupational medicine in a format that multi-disciplinary colleagues such as GPs will find useful.”

Dr Sheikh is extremely grateful to all those who have contributed to all the guidance documents and is keen to hear from those undertaking workplace research.

“The Faculty would like to collate and promote workplace evidence-based research, so please get in touch if you are working in this field,” said Dr Sheikh.

If you are working on research and want to discuss this with the Faculty, please contact fom@fom.ac.uk ^[19]

The Faculty has developed a new online learning resource to help Trainees and CESR candidates understand work activities with health hazards.

Located on the Faculty website ^[21], it contains three elements:

• A video library of many common work activities which present health hazards to workers. The videos are short and will be useful for Trainees and CESR candidates
• A list of work venues open to the public in the UK which can be visited and show active work
• A list of online resources about general guidance for occupational health practice

Dr Ian Aston has led the work on developing this resource and he said: “Key skills of occupational health professionals are understanding workplaces and what work activities are undertaken there. We hope this online resource will contribute to Trainees understanding of the specialty.

“I would like to thank the members of the Faculty working group who spent many hours researching and discussing the videos we included.”

The FOM was pleased to hear the Chancellor recognise the key role occupational health (OH) plays in supporting working people and is examining the detail of the government’s occupational health plans.

Professor Steve Nimmo, FOM’s President, said: “It was fantastic to hear the Chancellor recognise the importance of occupational health during his budget speech. We believe universal access to occupational health would be the most effective approach to keeping people in work and boosting the economy. However, these latest steps are welcome and we are pleased that the value of occupational health is being acknowledged at the highest level of government.”

The OH provisions in the Budget ^[23] include:

• An increase in funding to £25m for the subsidy pilot for SME’s to access occupational health. This trial will examine the impact on uptake of OH and build an evidence base for a national roll out of the subsidy.
• Two new consultations. One concerning opportunities to incentivise uptake of OH for employers through taxation, the second will explore increasing employer engagement with OH by regulation or other levers. This consultation will also consider “a process of kitemarking and professional accreditation to assure quality of occupational health services”. The Faculty believes this should be delivered by its SEQOHS accreditation scheme.
• A new service called WorkWell – a three-year pilot to provide funding for Integrated care systems (ICSs) to provide lower level biopsychosocial support from clinical and non-clinical services to encourage people to return to work. Exact service decided at local level by the ICSs, but may include access to OH. There is additional funding of £400m for MSK and mental health services.