e-Campus - Work Wellness Institute

In the U.K. less than 30% of all working people have access to occupational health and safety services . This was also the situation in Scotland where there is also an increased prevalence of poor lifestyles and the ill health associated with obesity, alcohol, and smoking.

Health care is provided by the National Health Services which is a free treatment service and which also provides the treatment for workplace injuries and work related ill health.  However the NHS does not have the same focus on rehabilitation and return to work after injury which is seen in countries where occupational injuries are treated by an insurance based health system or where the employer bears the cost of treatment, and where there is a fiscal stimulus to encourage prompt rehabilitation and return to work.

Recognising these factors led to the development of the Healthy Working Lives Strategy which states that all services should be focussed on "enabling individuals to be able to do as much as possible, for as long as possible, or as long as they want in their working and personal lives".

The subsequent development of intervention services, and their evaluation will be described.

Learning objectives:

• understand the Healthy Working Lives paradigm 
• know what interventions may be effective
• know how to utilise the bio-psychosocial model

Ewan B. MacDonald, OBE 

Professor, University of Glasgow; Head, Healthy Working Lives Group; Institute of Health & Wellbeing, University of Glasgow

Ewan is Head of the Healthy Working Lives Group which he established at the University of Glasgow in 1990. Previous experience includes being Director of Salus Occupational Health & Safety which is the largest NHS based Occupational Health & Safety service in the UK. Other roles have involved being Chief Medical Officer to Alcan UK and Europe, Chief Medical Officer to IBM (UK) and Chair of the IBM European OH Board (EU, Middle East and Africa).  He also started his career in Occupational Medicine after training in internal medicine, in the UK Coal-Mining Industry.

As well as leading the Healthy Working Lives (HWL) Group he has always combined academic research and teaching with clinical practice. He is a Past President of the UK Faculty of Occupational Medicine (FOM) and Founder and Past President of the OM section of the Union of European Medical Specialists. He developed the Healthy Working Lives Paradigm and this was adopted as policy in Scotland. Subsequently he stimulated its review which led to the Health Works Policy. During 2011 he chaired the implementation group of the first Health Works pilot to introduce a redesigned musculoskeletal service in the Health Service in Scotland with the aim of ensuring a more patient-centred faster service with a focus on return to maximum function including work, where appropriate. He is a member of the National Advisory Group, Healthy Working Lives, Health Scotland and has recently been invited to be an expert advisor to the newly formed Scottish Government Disability Advisory Group.Ewan also proposed the OHS Extra service which was the forerunner of the "Fit for Work" service across the UK.

His research includes extending working lives, working age population, sickness absence, and he has recently published the first OH study of high altitude climbing Sherpas. His research has evolved from a focus on the health problems caused by work to the health problems caused by worklessness and he believes that worklessness is the major contributor to increased morbidity, mortality, health inequalities and social exclusion in Scotland. He established with others, the Scottish Observatory for Work and Health, which is based in his group at the University, and current research projects include evaluation of return to work initiatives, the biological changes underpinning health inequalities, long working hours and doctors' health and health and safety in equine vets. His research income over the past 20 years has exceeded £9 million and includes research for the MRC (Medical Research Council), the Scottish Government, NHS Lanarkshire, and the HSE (Health & Safety Executive).

This program is pre-approved by VRA Canada for a 1 hour training session