Opportunities for growing a multidisciplinary occupational health (OH) clinical workforce:  Consolidating evidence from research and practice 

COMPLETED

Aim: A project to scope out and assess opportunities for growing a multidisciplinary OH clinical workforce with an emphasis on the role and utility of allied health professionals from different disciplines, and other emerging clinical roles. The outputs generated from this work will be used to inform development of the National OH Workforce Strategy 

What the research will involve:

Work package (WP)

WP1: Cross-sectional workforce survey of NHS OH and wellbeing departments 

WP2: Review of core job characteristics, person specifications and competencies of OH allied health job roles 

WP3: Systematic review of NIHR library/Cochrane (Work) reviews to identify studies where non-OH personnel have been trained to provide OH functions and their training and ability to deliver have been evaluated. 

WP4: Semi-structured focus group interviews 

What has the study found so far? (key updates) 

Study completed in 2022. Findings from this work informed a set of recommendations to underpin efforts to grow and expand the future multidisciplinary NHS OH&WB workforce, particularly in relation to the current and future role of allied health professionals and other emerging OH&WB staff groups were proposed by the study teams. Findings informed the NHS England OH Workforce strategy.   

Study Team and further Information: Dr Vaughan Parsons, Prof Ira Madan.  

Further information: vaughan.parsons@gstt.nhs.uk 

Funder:  NHS England 

Publications - pending