Public health measures are enough to fight swine flu

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Most employers do not need to provide antiviral drugs and vaccinations to protect staff from the swine flu pandemic, according to the chief medical adviser of Royal Mail Group.

Dr Steven Boorman, an occupational health expert who is leading a government-commissioned review into the health and well-being of NHS staff, said that public stocks of the antiviral Tamiflu and the vaccination against the illness, available from September, were sufficient. He warned that the logistics of supplying antiviral medicine in large organisations “may have inherent risks attached to it and it is completely unnecessary”.

“The public health response has been very well planned so those at risk will receive vaccinations quickly enough,” he said, adding the UK was very well prepared compared with other countries.

The provision of face masks by employers, except for health workers, was also unnecessary and unless changed very frequently, risked increasing the spread of infection, he said.

Several major employers have reportedly brought in large stocks of antiviral drugs and face masks to protect their staff. BT has issued hygiene packs to its engineers, including face masks, while the BBC has bought 4,000 doses of Tamiflu.

Boorman said Royal Mail, which has 180,000 employees, was concentrating on building up good relationships with public health planners and giving staff clear advice, based on the Department of Health’s guidance. This included simple hygiene measures such as regular hand-washing. He said there was a delicate balance between making sure employees took the pandemic seriously and not frightening people unnecessarily. “The thing we have found working in a big organisation is it’s actually quite a difficult scenario in terms of keeping things in proportion,” he added.

Royal Mail has set up a “flu tracker” within its HR system to monitor levels of absence and compare them with previous years. Boorman said that, while they had seen an upturn in flu cases, “we are not seeing the number of cases yet that are predicted”. Levels of absence through flu were down on summer last year, he added, and they had also noticed only a small rise in the number of enquiries to their in-house occupational health service.

In the event of the pandemic getting worse, as is predicted, and large numbers of workers going off sick, Boorman said they had plans in place to maintain critical services. Mail could be rerouted if certain areas of the country were more badly affected than others and they would make greater use of automated equipment. Certain services would be prioritised, including ensuring post offices had sufficient cash supplies and hospitals continued to receive mail.

Boorman admitted the government’s emergency plans to allow employees to self-certify illness for two weeks had “created some concern and enquiries from managers”. But he said there had not so far been an increase in the number of people self-certifying for one week, under the current rules, because swine flu was in most cases a mild disease that cleared up within three to five days.

“One of the things about being a postman is people have pride and motivation so they come back to work as quickly as possible. There may be a few lead swingers but that will be the minority,” he added.

Earlier in the month Royal Mail won a Business in the Community award for its health and well-being programme, which has reduced sickness absence by 7 per cent in a year, saving the company more than £15 million.

Boorman’s interim review of the NHS workforce will published in mid-August.

[stokes11eg]

So. our beloved company won an award for it's health for it's health and well being programme-reducing sickness by 7%?Should read for bullying sick folks back to work,before they are ready

[General Mannerheim]

Was his dad that despicable nazi Martin Boorman?