Safety-at-work doctors halved

THE Government plans to cut by half the team of doctors responsible for combating dangers in the workplace.

The doctors, who form the Employment Medical Advisory Service of the Health and Safety Executive, have the legal power to enter all businesses and enforce changes and improvements in working practices and environments should they pose a risk to health.

Now the Government wants their numbers cut from a peak of 120 to about 60. Instead, employers will increasingly be required to police themselves with the help of occupational health consultants.

The cuts, which come amid increasing concern about the incidence of occupational ill health, are being seen as part of the Government's deregulation of industry. They also coincide with an HSE initiative to combat specific ill health in the workplace, including deafness, lung diseases and back problems.

Around 7 per cent of consultations with doctors involve work-related health problems and 2.2 million people a year are thought to have an illness relating to their work. When GPs see a patient with a work-related health problem, they can call on EMAS, which will then inspect the work premises.

Professor Anthony Seaton, Professor of Occupational Health at Aberdeen University Medical School, warned that the planned reduction in doctors' numbers would have a marked impact on people's health.

"If someone gets a work-related illness it will become more and more difficult to do anything about the workplace and as a result, people are more likely to develop a work-related illness.''

An HSE spokeswoman said: "There is a proposal to reduce the number of medical staff directly employed by HSE. The proposals come as part of the HSE's market-testing programme and form a feasibility study designed to see if any of the services of EMAS could be better provided if they were contracted out to the private sector.

"If the proposals go forward, this could lead to a reduction in directly employed medical staff to around 60 to 65. There would be no reduction in funding."

She added: "The Management of Health and Safety Regulations put a new obligation on employers to obtain appropriate health and safety advice. In the case of health risks, much of this is likely to be met by occupational health consultants."