By Amanda Hinkley, FOHN Chair
In 2025, FOHN and SOM entered into a collaborative strategic partnership with the aim to integrate their approaches to workplace health and wellbeing and support the multiprofessional occupational health (OH) workforce.
Twelve months on, I am proud of the progress we have made together. What began as a shared vision has developed into strong team working and engagement to represent OH professionals at a national level on workplace health and wellbeing.
The strength of the collaborative partnership has been the willingness to build an open relationship that facilitates representation for OH nurse members. There have been many achievements and these would have not been possible without the support of the FOHN committee (past and present members) who undertake the role as volunteers in their spare time. These achievements include:
FOHN Accreditation
A review of the original accreditation framework has taken place, led by Wendy Jones and Diane Romano-Woodward with support from Stephanie Foster. We are really excited for the forthcoming relaunch of a more comprehensive framework with easier accessibility through the application on the new SOM website.
Social Media
FOHN has continued with the FOHN Facebook and LinkedIn pages but also contributes to SOM newsletters. Thanks to Phina Amahoro we have published a meet the FOHN committee bio and photo monthly. Phina pioneered a new FOHN monthly podcast and the first four have been amazing and shined the spotlight on OH education and the wider OH workforce, such as hygienists and OH leaders.
National Representation
Our aim is representing OH nurses nationally and internationally. There have been several opportunities, such as attending the FOHNEU Congress in Cork last October and the IOSH invite to the Houses of Parliament. I have also represented OH nursing on the Chief Nursing Officer for England, Public Health Nursing Group.
We will continue to grab every opportunity to ensure OH nurses' voices are heard.
Thanks to Past FOHN Chair and Founder, Christina Butterworth, Professor Neil Greenberg (SOM President), Dr Lanre Ogunyemi (Past SOM President), Nick Pahl (SOM CEO) and the SOM team for supporting the partnership in creation and transition and providing FOHN with opportunities to represent and engage on the wider agenda of workplace health and wellbeing.
Amanda Hinkley is Chair of FOHN. You can get in touch with Amanda at Amanda.hinkley@som.org.uk