Occupational health nurse
Occupational health nurses care for the health and wellbeing of people at work.
What you'll do
Day-to-day tasks
In this role you could:
- carry out pre-employment medical checks
- assess and treat employees who are injured or become ill at work
- provide counselling and support
- give advice on health education, health and safety and sickness absence
- carry out risk assessments and keep employee health records
Working environment
You could work in an NHS or private hospital or at a client's business.
Your working environment may be physically demanding.
You may need to wear a uniform.
Career path and progression
With experience you could:
- move into management and lead a team of occupational health staff or run an occupational health centre
- become self-employed and work as an occupational health consultant
- work for a private company
- take extra qualifications and go into nurse education or research
What it takes
Skills and knowledge
You'll need:
- knowledge of medicine and nursing
- sensitivity and understanding
- a desire to help people
- the ability to accept criticism and work well under pressure
- to be thorough and pay attention to detail
- patience and the ability to remain calm in stressful situations
- the ability to work well with others
- thinking and reasoning skills
- to be able to use a computer and the main software packages competently
How to become
You can get into this job through an apprenticeship or by working towards this role.
If you're a qualified registered nurse or midwife, you could do a Specialist Community Public Health Nurse Level 7 Degree Apprenticeship.
This usually takes a year and 6 months to complete and is a mix of learning at work and study at an accredited university.
Entry requirements
To do this apprenticeship, you'll need:
- to be a registered nurse
More Information
You could apply to become an occupational health nurse if you're already a registered nurse and have the support of your employer.
You could take a qualification like an approved programme in Specialist Community Public Health Nursing - Occupational Health Nursing (SCPHN - OHN).
There's usually no minimum amount of post-registration experience needed. However entry requirements can vary between universities who offer the programme.
Registration
- you'll need to register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council
Further information
You can find out more about how to become an occupational health nurse from Health Careers.
Related careers
Related videos
Suggested videos
Coffee With is in early release mode with a limited number of videos. New videos are being added every week, so please check back for updates.
External links
This page contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.