1. Overall participation levels
Round 11 National Summary
This was the first time that this Round was conducted over the summer months. The impact of holiday season was seen by the level of participation. Below are some of the summaries of the national results as at the end August It is important for organisations to pull their own reports to gain benefit from the system for their own services.
Overall participation levels
The reduction in participation rates in Round 11 to date has been mainly seen by some private services who have bought licences for this year’s access but not yet entered data. There has also been some regular participating NHS services that have been unable to input into Round 11 as yet.
Long Term Absence
In Round 11, a marked increase has been seen for those employees who have been off for > 4 weeks who, as part of their OH assessment, have been assessed for mental health issues and an increase in the actual symptoms that have been assessed. Research indicates that mental health issues often prolong long term absence and so appropriate questioning and guidance to employees is a vital part of the OH assessment

2. Protection of Infection
Back pain
From the services that took part in Round 11, there has been an increase in the number who are assessing for yellow flags as part of their back pain assessment after a recent decline in this area. However, this area of practice still needs to be considered within the assessments of some practitioners. The presence of yellow flags is likely to increase worker absence. OH practitioners can play a role in reducing the impact of this area.
Protection of Infection
The level of compliance in this area of work appears to have reduced in Round 11 – why are workers not having a VZV antibody test if they have an unknown history of VZV?
Why has there been a reduction in the number of workers who have had their Hep B response checked after their last dose of primary course?
Both areas are food for thought for all services who have a requirement to protect their workers from infection.
If your service didn’t score well in these areas what are you doing about it?
Worker and manager feedback
Since ‘raising the bar’ in these indicators from Round 7 – the worker experience element has now increased and is very close to 100% again. However, there has been a varied response from managers. Services need to consider the relationship with all customers – workers and managers - when reviewing their services. How does your service score in this area? If you didn’t score so highly – what are you doing about it?