{"id":54576,"date":"2025-04-27T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/54576\/"},"modified":"2025-04-27T11:00:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T11:00:15","slug":"plea-for-medical-notes-to-include-patients-job-history-amid-fears-over-workplace-toxins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/54576\/","title":{"rendered":"Plea for medical notes to include patients’ job history amid fears over workplace toxins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scottish Hazards believe it would make it quicker to diagnose workplace-related disease.\"MedicalSafety campaigners’ plea for medical notes to include job history over fears about workplace toxins.(Image: sturti\/Getty)<\/p>\n

Safety campaigners are calling for people\u2019s employment to be included on medical notes to make it easier for doctors to identify work-related illnesses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ian Tasker of Scottish Hazards said the plan could help when it comes to diagnosing diseases<\/a> linked to heavy industries including cancers, mesothelioma or lung damage.<\/p>\n

Campaigners also hope it could allow medics to identify patterns of disease<\/a> associated with specific workplaces.<\/p>\n

Scottish Hazards, a charity which campaigns on the prevention of work-related illness<\/a> and injury, will speak to delegates about their proposals this week at the Scottish Trades Union Congress.<\/p>\n

Ian Tasker of Scottish Hazards, a workplace safety charity<\/p>\n

Charity boss Tasker said: \u201cThere is an association between bladder cancer<\/a> and tyre manufacturing, as well as of course mesothelioma from asbestos and cancers linked to welding fumes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are just a few examples but we feel that if doctors<\/a> had access to people\u2019s employment history and could see they worked somewhere they could have been exposed to dangerous toxins they may be able to diagnose potentially fatal diseases quicker.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also might allow them to see if people who worked at the same place all started developing the same conditions or symptoms<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the British Occupational Hygiene<\/a> Society a quarter of Scottish lung cancers are \u201clikely associated with workplace exposures\u201d and it predicts more than 300 Scottish construction workers will die as a result of exposure to hazardous dust from working with bricks and mortar.<\/p>\n

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Tasker said: \u201cOften these types of diseases<\/a> don\u2019t develop until years after the person has stopped working and it would just make it easier for everyone to have a record of where people worked so any potential exposure to chemicals could be traced. \u201cThere are also toxins that people are working with now that may cause damage in future, that we don\u2019t even know about. So it\u2019s important to have a record.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to see the Scottish Government taking action to reduce the amount of toxins in our workplaces and communities overall but also help those who have been exposed to get a quick diagnosis.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “It is an employer’s duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of their staff and they must do whatever is reasonably practicable to achieve this. The Scottish Government promotes health, safety and wellbeing in the workplace through its Fair Work approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Scottish Government funds the NHS in a range of initiatives to support people with health conditions to enter, remain and progress in work.<\/p>\n

“These include Working Health Services Scotland and Public Health Scotland\u2019s Healthy Working Lives website, which provides advice and support on work related physical and mental health promotion, ill health prevention, return to work practices and workplace safety for employers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scottish Hazards believe it would make it quicker to diagnose workplace-related disease.Safety campaigners’ plea for medical notes to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,2207,2270,12550,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-54576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-hospitals","11":"tag-nhs-scotland","12":"tag-sunday-mail","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114409585335577228","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}