When it comes to continuous professional development (CPD) within Occupational Health, Kays Medical certainly has their finger on the pulse. Creating partnerships with other organisations is bringing with it great benefits to occupational health practitioners and Kays alike.

Working with the GMP (Greater Manchester Police) occupational health department, Kays recently organised a study day, which they hope can become an annually recognised event in the occupational health calendar. This study day took place on 5th October 2006 and had experts speaking about: skin surveillance, diabetes, sickness and absence, audiometry, drug testing and TB. The event was a roaring success with plenty of positive feedback. Marian Abdilla, Occupational Health Nurse Advisor for the GMP took responsibility for event organisation from the GMP side and commented “Kays Medical placed an extraordinary amount of time and resources towards organising this event considering it was a non-profit event, it’s good to see a company giving something back to their customers for a change!”

Greater Manchester Police and Kays Medical Joint Study day

From Left: Andy Campbell, GMP Occupational Nurse Advisor, Marian Abdilla, GMP Occupational Nurse Advisor and Daniel Polak, Senior Marketing Assistant, Kays Medical.

Kays are utilizing their understanding of the driving issues within occupational health their wealth of resources and contacts to make these study days possible, and hope to deliver many more of these opportunities for occupational health practitioners long into the future. Previous study days organised by Kays medical have had very positive feedback. Chris Newsome Occupational Health Manager at ITV Yorkshire commented “if you can get to the course it will be well worth the money. I came away with lots of new knowledge and a very helpful set of course notes”.

Kays Medical are also currently involved in promoting, and jointly sponsoring a series of five workshops geared towards the launch of “Employment Law and Occupational Health - A Practical Handbook” a new publication geared for the occupational health practitioners, written by Joan Lewis (consultant in employment law and human resource management) and Greta Thornbory (consultant in occupational health and education) .

Sickness absence can present major costs and business management problems to employers, so safeguarding employee health therefore makes perfect sense and hence the relevance of the topics covered at the workshops. These events are taking place across the UK in the following locations: Deeside (19th Oct), Glasgow (16th Nov), Newcastle (14th Dec), Peterborough (18th Jan) and Bristol (15th Feb). The agenda runs alongside topics covered in the book which include: pre-employment, disability discrimination, health surveillance, reports and record keeping, absence management, rehabilitation and termination of employment.

Kays medical look forward to meeting you at forthcoming events and as long as occupational health practitioners are finding the events useful Kays have every intention of continuing down the CPD path long into the future.