Spirometry Screening

Health & Safety should not be seen as a “requirement” or an additional cost - Rather it should become a company value

The 2008   Guidelines on Occupational Asthma.pdf  (314 KB) states that the employer must ensure a safe working environment where exposure to substances which can cause asthma is prevented or controlled.

The employer should have or provide the following:

• An up to date Safety Statement
• A Risk Assessment
• Adequate control measures
• Information to employees
• Health surveillance where appropriate

Repeated spirometric (lung function) evaluations can be used in health surveillance programmes when workplace exposures put workers at risk of developing occupationally related respiratory disorders.

Surveillance is needed to detect the slowly developing or delayed losses of function that characterise many work-related respiratory disorders. Damage to individuals could be limited and costs for employers largely avoided by adopting the appropriate preventative and control strategies required by the Regulations, and by the early identification of individual cases arising from both known and previously unrecognised causes of occupational asthma.

UrBod Healthcare can provide appropriate advice and initiate a health surveillance programme using spirometry testing as a screening technique used to detect indications of a disease, or effects, resulting from exposure to 'asthmagens'. This identification ensures appropriate follow-up remedial action in the workplace and any necessary advice or medical referral of the individual.

The objective of these guidelines is to provide useful information to enable employers and employees manage the prevention of occupational asthma in workplaces

  Guidlines on Occupational Asthma.pdf  (314 KB)

Respiratory sensitisers and COSHH [150KB]