Three in Four Occupational Health Staff Face Abuse or Bullying

Three-quarters of occupational health practitioners – 75% of a sample of 367 UK professionals – report having experienced abuse, bullying or harassment at work, with patients and workers they assess cited as the most frequent source. A further 40% say they have faced discrimination. Those figures come from a survey led by Professor Drushca Lalloo, honorary professor in occupational medicine at the University of Glasgow, working with the Society of Occupational Medicine (SOM) and the Faculty of Occupational Medicine (FOM). Researchers believe it is the first study of its kind.

The sample spanned physicians, nurses, advisors and allied health professionals working in occupational health. Within the group reporting mistreatment, more than half of the bullying, harassment or abuse – 59% – came from the workers practitioners were assessing in clinic. Employers the practitioners provided services to, including managers and HR, accounted for 47%.

The discrimination data shifts the picture. Employers and colleagues were equally the most common instigators, at 20% each, followed by the workers practitioners see in clinics at 19%.

For context, SOM points out that these rates run significantly higher than those recorded in annual NHS staff surveys, where one in four staff – 25% – report abuse from patients, service users, relatives or the public.

What the findings mean for practitioners and employers

For an individual OH clinician, the data describes a market position that is structurally exposed: the people you assess and the organisations that pay for your services are the two main sources of mistreatment. For employers commissioning occupational health services, the findings signal a workforce risk. Practitioners who face abuse from both clients and contracting organisations have limited internal channels for redress, since the employer is often the counterparty.

The research has been published in the SOM journal Occupational Medicine. The authors call on OH providers to implement clear policies, confidential reporting channels, better training and education, fair and prompt investigations and a much more proactive leadership culture.

They also make a specific operational recommendation: when employees attend occupational health, the invitation to the clinic should carry a standardised statement setting out the clinician's responsibilities to both the employer and the employee, so as to reduce the likelihood of misunderstanding of the OH professional's purpose and role.

SOM president Professor Neil Greenberg described the levels of abuse as "totally unacceptable". He added: "While abuse and bullying from patients and workers is bad enough, the extent to which practitioners are also suffering at the hands of co-workers and even the very employers they are contracted to work for is appalling."

With the first systematic evidence of the problem now in the public domain, pressure will likely grow on OH providers and commissioning employers to demonstrate concrete safeguarding measures rather than rely on goodwill.