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Health and Wellbeing of Older Professional Drivers: Best Practice Guidelines

Health and Wellbeing of Older Professional Drivers: Best Practice Guidelines Age, Health and Professional Drivers' Network Dr Sheena Johnson Sheena.johnson@manchester.ac.uk. Age, Health and Professional Drivers’ (AHPD) Network.

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Health and Wellbeing of Older Professional Drivers: Best Practice Guidelines

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  1. Health and Wellbeing of Older Professional Drivers: Best Practice Guidelines Age, Health and Professional Drivers' Network Dr Sheena Johnson Sheena.johnson@manchester.ac.uk

  2. Age, Health and Professional Drivers’ (AHPD) Network A network promoting best practice in the transport industry relating to the ageing workforce and the health of professional drivers

  3. Age, Health and Professional Drivers’ (AHPD) Network The Age Health and Professional Drivers’ Network has over 60 member organisations, including transport and logistic firms and representatives, unions, employers and employees. Network members assisted in production of industry led best practice guidelines relating to age and driver wellbeing.

  4. Why the AHPD Network? • Average age of HGV drivers in UK is around 50 years and is increasing (Freight Transport Association, 2017) • 13% of drivers are over 60; 2% are under 25 (HGV training network, 2017) • Chronic shortage of qualified HGV drivers • Evidence from America suggests long-haul truck driving is disproportionately detrimental to health and safety

  5. Health and wellbeing of HGV drivers • Multiple risk factors: • Obesity • Hypertension • Unhealthy diet • Lack of exercise • Sleep deprivation and disturbance • Exposure to stress • Can lead to medical conditions e.g. diabetes, sleep apnoea, cardiovascular disease as well as musculoskeletal disorders

  6. Research phase one • What is the reality of working into older age for HGV drivers in the UK, and what does this mean for health and wellbeing? • Interviews in 5 medium to large logistics companies • 14 male HGV drivers • 7 managers and supervisors http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr1104.pdf

  7. Research phase two • Interviews with 10 health and safety managers and trainers, plus 1 focus group • Discussion forum with representatives from a transport union • Interviews with 36 drivers of 7.5 to 44 tonne vehicles and 6 managers of two large national companies • Review academic research: • What health and wellbeing initiatives work and what don’t

  8. What do organisations do? Organisations are reactive not proactive: • Focus on ‘safety’ and not ‘health’ initiatives • Health and wellbeing initiatives are not priorities “We tend to tell people about ‘safety’ and not about ‘health……tend not to do [that] unless we have to. The Employee Health and Wellbeing Workgroup used to exist, [we] had the best of intentions but it petered out. It wasn’t high up on the priorities” “if somebody comes with a health issue, then we’ll help them with that and manage that….. but do we go out and look for health issues or push drivers to try and change their habits, then I don’t think we do”

  9. What do organisations do (cont.)? Limited wellbeing or mental health strategies: • Lack of knowledge • Can’t ‘see’ it • Don’t know where to begin “You know, if somebody walks in with an arm hanging off, or a physical injury I think [managers] probably do a pretty okay job. But I think if it’s an invisible injury so to speak, I don’t think a lot of them would do a very good job, and I would suspect that as a result, a lot of those conversations don’t happen because drivers are not confident… enough to open those conversations because they don’t think necessarily anything will come of it, and/or they just don’t know how it will be reacted to”.

  10. One of the main issues Drivers are reluctant to declare health issues, or attend medical screenings, unless they have to legally: “…we don’t screen for sleep apnea, and I suspect that most drivers wouldn’t welcome that screening, if I’m being really direct and honest, because I think they would see it as a risk to their job” “…there’s probably one [colleague] that may be a little bit nervous about doing that [medical screening], because of fear that something might occur or might come up, which then might affect them from doing the job. Because, as far as they’re concerned, they are fine. They are healthy”.

  11. Industry led guidelines for best practice relating to age and wellbeing in the transport sector. Publically available via AHPD website. - focus on ten areas of health and wellbeing that our research identified as significant and provide detail and links to relevant external resources. emphasise the value of support, implementation and evaluation. Focus is on professional drivers and the transport sector but the overall message and the ten areas of health and wellbeing can be useful for application in other industries. AHPD Best practice guidelines

  12. AHPD Best practice guidelines

  13. Support (how to help and encourage) Implementation (how to do it) Evaluation (is it working? Has it worked?) We highlight key points in relation to each of these, for example: AHPD Best practice guidelines

  14. Mental Health (e.g. limiting the job impact on wellbeing) Physical Health (e.g. increasing the opportunity for physical activity) Healthy Eating (e.g. encouraging healthy eating habits) Working Practices (e.g. reducing health damage) Working Patterns (e.g. considering shift patterns and flexible working) Retirement (e.g. providing advice and planning) Culture (e.g. recognising the importance of management attitudes) Communication (e.g. how best to do it) Training (e.g. helping people to perform well) Bereavement (e.g. giving support and introducing policies) AHPD Best practice guidelines

  15. Each ‘spoke’ addressed in turn in the guidelines and detailed advice for older employees, and more general advice provided. Resources are linked in each section. For example: AHPD Best practice guidelines

  16. BEREAVEMENT

  17. BEREAVEMENT: RESOURCES

  18. Resources (where to go for more detailed information) Comprehensive list of publically available resources provided with each section, and listed at the end of the guidelines. References Details of supporting academic references also provided. AHPD Best practice guidelines

  19. AHPD Best practice guidelines Access guidelines via the AHPD website.www.ambs.ac.uk/ahpdn Contact me with any questions or for further information Sheena.johnson@manchester.ac.uk 0161 306 3445

  20. AHPD Network websitewww.ambs.ac.uk/ahpdn

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