By Amy McKeown, Workplace Health Strategy Consultant
When the Society of Occupational Medicine (SOM) began in 1935 (then known as the Association of Industrial Medical Officers), Britain was powered by mills, mines, and shipyards. Coal dust coated lungs, machinery mangled hands and long shifts were routine. A handful of doctors believed work should sustain life, not shorten it, and set out to work together to demonstrate that healthy workers build a stronger nation.
SOM members supplied evidence to government committees implementing the Factories Acts. After the Second World War, the NHS unfortunately did not embed occupational health services for people of working age, believing that employers should take that responsibility.
Post-war boom challenges included: chemicals, asbestos, industrial noise. SOM physicians produced the research that set exposure standards and informed the Robens Committee, whose work shaped the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974.
The service economy of the 1980s and 90s shifted risks again. SOM documented the rise of repetitive-strain injuries and was among the first to link workplace stress and mental health, decades before “wellbeing” became a boardroom word.
These milestones prove a constant truth: prevention pays. Yet Britain again faces a health-at-work crisis. The latest CIPD research finds employees averaging 9.4 sick days a year, up from 5.8 before the pandemic. Only 31 per cent of employers use occupational health proactively and barely 29 per cent involve it in health strategy. Sir Charlie Mayfield’s Keep Britain Working review warns that ill-health inactivity could add 25 billion pounds to the welfare bill by 2030.
Now we enter SOM’s ninetieth year with another industrial-scale shift. Artificial intelligence is reorganising work itself, erasing some careers, creating others, and handing decisions once made by people to algorithms. When steam power transformed Britain, it triggered the labour movement, modern employment law, and the birth of occupational medicine. AI will demand a similar leap: new standards and protections for workers whose roles and organisations may change as fast as the technology. Digital surveillance, algorithmic workloads, and the erosion of stable career paths pose fresh risks to mental and physical health that only a forward-looking occupational health system can meet.
The Government’s Employment Rights Bill, with its promise of day-one sick pay, is welcome but treats symptoms, not causes. The next step must be universal, early access to occupational health - what some have called a National Occupational Health Service - so every worker, from coder to care-home cleaner, can see an expert before illness forces them out of work.
As we celebrate Occupational Health Awareness Week (22nd–28th September) and SOM’s 90th anniversary, we invite employers, HR leaders and policymakers to act now: commit to early occupational health referral in every organisation, support a national pathway to universal access, and join SOM’s free OHAW webinars and access resources to learn how. Healthy work is not a perk; it is the infrastructure of a thriving economy. The next revolution in workers’ rights starts with using occupational health earlier and at every level.
