The second annual Greater Manchester Police and Kays Medical Occupational Health study day took place 25th October 2007. It has grown from last years inaugural event to capacitate nearly double the amount of delegates. The delegates comprised of Occupational Health staff across the entire Industrial spectrum , council OH staff, OH providers, and of course OH workers from police forces from around the country.

Marian Abdilla, joint organiser of the event and Occupational Health Nurse advisor from GMP was extremely happy with the success of the day as were the Kays Medical Marketing team – Daniel Polak and Dominic Manley – who worked with Marian to make the day happen.

From left: Daniel Polak, Assistant Marketing Manager, kays Medical. Amanda Lloyd, OH Nurse Advisor, GMP. Andrew Campbell, visiting OH nurse Advisor & MC. Marian Abdilla, OH Nurse Advisor, GMP. Dominic Manley, Marketing Assistant, Kays Medical.

The event held at the Hough End centre in Manchester received a lot of great feedback on the quality of speakers and the relevance of topics for the Occupational Health industry. Daniel Polak maintains that “the success of the day is down to a very simple formula: affordable ticket prices combined with extremely relevant topics delivered by high quality speakers”.

Dr John Cooper, Head of Corporate Occupational Health, Unilever began proceedings discussing “the business benefits of a healthy work force” to the delegates. All agreed that this was a thought provoking and useful presentation. Sue Teasdale, Diabetes specialist nurse, Salford Royal Hospital Foundation Trust covered “The Diabetic Epidemic” a topic not always visited enough at OH study days. A subject we approached last year also. Georgina Martin, senior Chief Cardio Respiratory Head of Department, St James University Hospital provided the audience with her presentation on “Spirometry – A practical guide.” Even though she had the most difficult time slot of the day – just after lunch, she managed to engage with the delegates and provided a very charismatic and educative presentation. With the final presentation topic of the day Dr Ian Strickland, Consultant Psychiatrist, West Midlands Police Psychiatric Services covered “Mental Health in the workplace” a topic that has grown in recognition of importance more and more within the modern occupational health environment.

It was with great pleasure that, Andy Campbell formally with the GMP Occupational Health Unit, now a special police constable for the Merseyside police, chaired the event. All would agree he did an excellent job.

Kays involvement in providing a platform for continual professional development into occupational health continues into the future as we plan to provide events in other key areas of the country. We are holding a study day in Chester partnering with Airbus UK, in November 2007. We expect over 100 delegates to attend and have already begun discussions on holding a further day at their Filton site in the following year.

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.