Helping sick employees and preventing workplace injuries: Bridge to Health’s Employee Health & Wellness Programme

In a past life, I was European managing director of a business consulting firm specialised in modelling the market impact of service performance on customer loyalty, and assessing the relative ROI (Return on Investment) of remedial action.

In my current guise as an osteopath, I decided that Bridge to Health should draw on this experience to assist its many corporate clients in limiting the costs and lost revenue incurred by work-place injuries due to preventable causes.

Just thinking of my own personal experience in the office environment – when I walked into our Finance Controller’s office to find him lying on the floor with his feet resting on the desk to alleviate his back pain – one knew he really needed to seek professional help. Ignoring the early signs and then battling with the increasing pain as the complaint worsened led to far more days off treating and recovering than if he acted on it rapidly.

The principle of our Employee Health & Wellness programme is simple: we welcome and treat an unending stream of corporate manual or office-bound employees with injuries incurred in the workplace. A dozen or so common injuries or conditions account for well over 80% of the cases we treat at the clinic. For example:

• Office workers with neck and shoulder tension pain, or tennis elbow
• Mid/lower back muscle, ligament or joint pain, with or without pelvic torsion (also common amongst office-based staff)
• Circulatory and gastro-intestinal disorders (e.g. office workers suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or bloating);
• Shoulder injuries, mid- and lower-back muscle strain, RSI-induced osteoarthritis for manual workers

It struck Marcus and I that a sizeable portion of these injuries could be prevented by drawing on our clinical experience to present to the workforce about the injuries, their root causes, and practical postural and life-style approaches to preventing them from occurring.

Over the past year, we have developed a corporate outreach programme incorporating the following services:

• Ergonomic assessments that do more than assess and advise state of the art work stations, but evaluate the workplace at large, including meeting rooms, photocopying /stationery units and canteens, and assess how employees use or abuse their work environment at the expense of their health;
• Workplace injury prevention workshops that take groups of up to 20 employees through an interactive workshop that helps them to understand the nature of the most frequently occurring workplace injuries in their environment, and equip them with the reflexes, life habits and skills to avoid them;
• In-house treatment sessions to introduce staff to manual therapy/massage and healthcare – ideal for a health awareness day or a team motivation event;
• Discounted clinic services spanning osteopathic healthcare, therapeutic massage, and diet/lifestyle/nutritional assessments and advice.

Bridge to Health have health agreements with over 30 companies and organisations around Uxbridge, Ruislip, Hillingdon and Slough (and Reading is within our reach too).

For most businesses, the employees are the key asset. As part of a fresh start for the new year and reviewing how your business is going to weather the current economic gloom, remember your workforce! Look after them.

If you’re reading this and think some of your colleagues/team/office could benefit from a treatment session or attending a workshop, email this page to the appropriate contact in your company! Or contact me (Mathieu Rossano) on 01895 2000 50 (click here for email). Bridge to Health’s osteopath clinic in Uxbridge is open 6 days a week (to 8PM weekdays, 2PM Saturday)