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What determines the size of occupational health services in UK universities?

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posted on 2007-01-16, 00:00 authored by K Venables, Steven AllenderSteven Allender
Background There is wide, largely unexplained, variation in occupational health (OH) provision between UK employers.

Aim To explain the variation in OH provision across the UK university sector.

Methods Analyses of data from a survey of university OH services and from the Higher Education Statistics Agency. The outcome variable was clinical (doctor + nurse) staffing of the university's OH service. The explanatory variables examined were university size, income, research activity score and presence or absence of academic disciplines categorized by an expert panel as requiring a high level of OH provision.

Results All 117 UK universities were included and 93 (79%) responded; with exclusions and incomplete data, between 80 and 89 were included in analyses. There was wide variation in clinical OH staffing (range 0–8.4 full-time equivalents). Number of university staff explained 34% of the variation in OH staffing. After adjusting for other factors, neither the research activity nor the presence of high-needs disciplines appeared to be factors currently used by employers to determine their investment in OH.

Conclusions Government or other guidelines for university employers should take organizational size into account. Employers may need guidance on how to provide OH services proportionate to specific occupational hazards or other OH needs.

History

Journal

Occupational medicine

Volume

57

Pagination

210 - 213

Location

Oxford, England

Open access

  • Yes

ISSN

0962-7480

eISSN

1471-8405

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2007, Oxford University Press

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