Health and Safety Report 2019

HEALTH & SAFETY REPORT 2019

3.4 Health

Examining Doctors’ Assessments and Training The OGUK standard for medical fitness to work offshore is recognised as a global standard in the industry. The list of examining doctors on the OGUK register that can carry out such assessments includes practitioners from 60 countries across Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Americas and Africa. 6 To register, medical professionals must complete the association’s Introduction for Oil & Gas UK Registered Doctors training. The training course is designed to give delegates knowledge of life and work offshore so that they have a better understanding of the standard of medical fitness required. Over 100 new doctors were trained and registered in 2018. OGUK also hosts an annual Examining Doctors Conference to bring together registered doctors from across the world, providing them with essential updates and networking opportunities. Almost 100 doctors from across four continents attended the 2018 conference. Each year, the registered doctors carry out medical assessments of offshore oil and gas employees around the globe using the Oil & Gas UK Medical Aspects of Fitness for Offshore Work: Guidance for Examining Physicians . 7 The doctors submit a statistical return, indicating the total number of medicals they have performed and the numbers of cases in which individuals have failed to pass their assessments, as well as the reasons for those failures. The number of medicals performed increased again in 2018, reaching the highest level since 2010. The use of the OGUK guidelines as a global standard for working offshore means that not all those medicals were conducted for individuals working in the UKCS.

In 2018, the fail rate of examinations remained steady at around 1 per cent, lower than the average rate of 1.15 per cent for the period shown below.

Figure 20: Examining Doctors Statistics

Year

Total Number of Medicals Conducted

Number of Medicals Failed Percentage Medicals Failed

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

56,850 59,900 93,219 113,006 118,597 111,651 99,104 110,688 127,474

784 665

1.38 1.11 1.38 1.18 1.08 1.01 1.14 1.21 1.02

1,284 1,333 1,285 1,125 1,125 1,339 1,298

6 Find out more about the OGUK Register for Examining Doctors at www.oilandgasuk.co.uk/doctors 7 The Medical Aspects of Fitness for Offshore Work: Guidance for Examining Physicians is available to download at www.oilandgasuk.co.uk/product/medical-aspects-of-fitness-for-offshore-work-guidelines-for-examining-physicians/

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