Work won’t send me to occupational health

My work wont refer to OH until you have seen your gp

What would be the purpose of your visit? The most common purpose of OH is to try to support people back to work who have been off sick.

As others have suggested I'd say GP would be more appropriate.

Our OH wouldn’t see you. You would be expected to go to your GP, then if signed off long term eventually OH would be involved to allowa return to work

Just go to your GP

If you have a diagnosed disability, you are entitled to “reasonable adjustments”. I have a disability diagnosed in recent years. It took me a long time to establish who would assess for these “adjustments”. Health and safety for physical (makes sense) but I’m autistic…anyway, after some investigation I discovered that for my workplace (NHS) we had an agreement with Access to work. The assessment starts by you referring yourself, they make contact with you and your manager, they then come in and assess and make recommendations. There is a fee (I think it’s about £1500) but they should pay it because you’re entitled to it. Might be worth looking into that.

The risk you face by not going off sick is that you become vulnerable to performance management, you say you are not currently working effectively. I am a manager for a nhs mental health team, you can ask to complete a WAP assessment ( if your company recognizes this) where you get to identify what may help to reduce stress etc at work, things like more frequent breaks. Your manager has to agree that the service can meet these. Personally I would suggest going off sick and then being referred to OH but they are unlikely to treat you. OH will most likely suggest some short term work place adaptions. If you have a serious mental illness you will have some protection under disability discrimination legislation.

It seems that OH & EAP type support are used as interchangeable terms.

My experience in the corporate sector is that Occupational Health is a specialist independent medical advisory service, contracted by the company to advise HR on employee capability, how best to rehabilitate employees & other matters such as medical retirement.

For assessment for disability based adjustments, other agencies were involved.

Employee self referral to OH was not available, self referral to EAP actively encouraged.

What is it that you expect OH to do for you & your line manager?

Is there an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) available in your workplace. EAP will likely offer you a short term course of counselling & support, & may offer assessment for further treatment

However, both EAP & OH services hinge on primary MH treatment available from the NHS, so the first point of contact is your GP which is what you are doing.

I suggest that a call to EAP will help you define what it is you want to do & how to access wellbeing in workplace support.

As you are aware your long term MH condition is a disability, & my interpretation of your comments is that you are looking for adjustments to be put in place, by your line management, to support you so that your wellbeing does not deteriorate.

At best, a workplace assessment is a swift set of transactions between employee & line manager with HR support built on sound equalities practice in the workplace.

Have you taken a look at the company’s intranet pages about equality & disability? Likely your line manager has not & may not realise what can be done to help you.

I suggest EAP are your first port of call. They are contracted by your employer to provide you with support. In this case they may be the key to unlock the door to get the adjustments you need.

I've referred myself to OH before. If you work for the NHS you should be able to. Just get the number for OH and phone them direct or I think you can put one through on the system when you log into staffnet. Good luck

Is there something specific about what is happening at work that is contributing to your worsening mental health? For example, unreasonable deadlines; a bullying manager; an unrealistic workload; difficult colleagues; changes in working practices; tasks outside your competence etc. It might help if you could work out specifically what is causing your difficulties, which might help decide who is best placed to support you.

@Soontobe60 where I work that would be what the EAP is for.

OH onward referral is for how you can do your job, what adjustments can be made, if you are well enough to be in work etc.......

As the OP isn't really stating what the OH would be for it's very hard to judge. She seems to be getting the help with her mental health but hasn't been clear why she is struggling to perform in her job.

Can you make a list of things you can do in your job and things you can’t?
Eg: I can’t do x but could do y instead.
I can do x but need more time to do it.
I need to rest for ten minutes a couple of times a day.
I need a very quiet place to work.

Ok. Is there anything you think might help you?

OH can't treat you or sign you off from work. They cannot prescribe or recommend treatment. You need to see your GP for that.

Their function is ultimately to minimise sickness absence for the employer.

I work in OH. You need need go to your GP first and foremost. Get help for your mental health condition, be that medication, being signed off, counselling, steps to wellbeing etc......

Then after you have done that you can approach your work regarding a OH referral. At the moment you don't stay what you expect OH to do, they are there to see how/when you can be in work and what adjustments may be required for that to happen, it is purely from a work point of view they won't be able to get down to the nitty gritty of your mental health conditions and give you treatments.

Does your work have an employee assistance programme? They may be able to help with counselling etc... if they do.

Do you have an employee assistance programme or anything like that? That might be better than OH which tends to be more practical in my experience.

What do you want to happen?

We can then work out the right path for you to take

What do you want OH to do? What do you want from them? I don’t understand. You don’t want to be signed off sick by your GP?

She told me to to ask my GP but they will sign me of imo, they don’t have any powers.

What powers are you needing? Is there a something in particular you want done?

Your gp could write a fit note that says you can work if xyz conditions are met, i think.