From Intensive Care to Occupational Health - Tutor Louise Wade's Career in Nursing
In conversation with Louise Wade, one of Compass Skills Training’s tutors for the Diploma in Occupational Health Practice, Louise tells us about how her career in Occupational Health started over 30 years ago, as well as how to overcome potential barriers for nurses when considering a career switch.
How did your career in Occupational Health begin?
Having worked in the NHS on wards and in intensive care units, I fell into my career in Occupational Health (OH) through a sheer fluke. I saw a flier on a noticeboard advertising a vacancy for a company who was looking for a second OH nurse. The opportunity was fantastic as they were offering to sponsor the new recruit through a BSc Occupational Health Nursing, as well as provide work placements and mentorship.
How did making the change to occupational health compare to working in intensive care?
Obviously, there’s a massive difference between working for the NHS and working for a private company as there’s a completely different organisational style. However, what had attracted me to both nursing in intensive care, and nursing in OH was the variety of work. I found myself doing something new every day and that’s what I enjoy. Each day I could meet different people and learn new things.
Another similarity I found between intensive care and OH was that in both I had worked in a small team which supported each other, but you also have a chance to make your own decisions and work autonomously. I also found that both OH and intensive care are multi-disciplinary. In both fields you can work with a range of different professionals, and you could find yourself working with anyone from doctors to physios; as well as health and safety professionals when working in OH.
Intensive care is an emotional place to work for not only the patient and the families but also for the staff. OH can be less intense in terms of not dealing with death so often but that’s not to say that OH is without challenges, as demand and workload can keep you on your toes.
How would describe a typical day as an Occupational Health nurse?
It’s really hard to describe a typical day as an Occupational Health Nurse as the workload is really varied. One day you might do some health surveillance, testing their hearing, and on another day you could be talking to someone about their sickness absence from work, or their bad back. On the other hand, you may find yourself going into a meeting with the managers of a company to discuss how to implement a particular form of Health & Safety legislation. It is a good mix of clinical and office based work as you are not only performing medical assessments but you are also advising people, and working with companies to put risk assessments in place in order to keep people safe at work.
How do you think barriers faced by those new to Occupational Health can be addressed?
A lot of nurses can feel stuck in the NHS and don’t know how to go about getting into something new, especially when they do not have experience and may be unsure how to go about getting that experience.
For me it’s all about talking to people. My advice is to take the initiative to find things out. Find out where local meetings and networking events are taking place and go to them so that you can speak to people who are already working in Occupational Health. You can find conferences all over the country – find your local one and get involved.
What would you say to any nurses thinking about a career specialising in Occupational Health? Who is OH suited towards?
Definitely go for it but – find out what it’s about in advance. Asking questions and being motivated goes a long way. People are usually happy to help if you show enthusiasm and an interest in the speciality, along with a willingness to learn. If you ask the question, you may be able to find someone who is willing to let you shadow them, and you can learn a lot about Occupational Health this way. OH can cover so many different industries from call centres, to large factories, and off-shore oil rigs, so it is worth speaking to people about what opportunities are out there.
Working in Occupational Health is ideal for someone who is happy to take on a challenge. Someone who realises that they don’t know everything in the beginning but is willing to learn things will go a long way. If variety and working with something different every day appeals to you and you want to learn new things and be challenged every day, then it’s for you.
How can the Diploma in Occupational Health help those at the start of their career?
As a specialism, Occupational Health definitely has a need for competent people who have an insight into what it really means and what the law says. The Diploma in Occupational Health Practice gives you the theoretical and practical basics and is a great opportunity for people who are just starting out in the speciality, or those who are wanting to start. Everyone has to find their own niche in their career and the course gives you the opportunity to have the choice to find out if it’s for you or not, and to find out what Occupational Health is really about.
It is a great course as it can help overcome barriers associated with not having the experience without having to enrol on a degree or masters level qualification.
What skills do you think are particularly important when working in Occupational Health?
Occupational Health is not necessarily about hands-on work every day but is often about influencing people who can make a difference to working lives in all kinds of work experiences. Being able to negotiate, influence and motivate people to make changes to do things in a better or safer way is a vital skill, and with these skills, you can make an impact both on both an individual and a wider organisational level.
Working in OH, you need to be able to communicate with everyone from a CEO down through the whole workforce. Every one of those people can be part of your workload and you need to be able to influence people at every level to do things in a better way. You might need to use different communication styles for different people.
For example, you could be encouraging and educating people at an operational level to wear hearing protection, emphasising how what they do day-to-day in their role affects their individual health.
On the other hand you may need to educate those at a management level about the importance of doing risk assessments, that they are not just a buzzword.
You may also need to educate them on their legal responsibilities, discussing relevant legislation and statistics to back up your suggestions, highlighting not only the legal framework that affects their business but that there’s also a moral framework to treat people right and look after the workforce. The employees of businesses who take into account the moral reasonings for implementing occupational health initiatives are often happier places to work in, as the employees can see that work is on their side and is looking out for them and their health.
Occupational health is a very rewarding career and when someone asks me would you do it again? I always say “Yes”, what more can you ask?
