
Diminishing Levels of DVT and PE in Executive Travellers
Large corporations, whose employees are required to travel long distances have a duty of care for business travel as well as in the traditionally static workplace environment. With climbing instances of DVT, Compression Advisory were brought in.
Two strong examples of groups of companies we work tirelessly with to improve occupational health are some of the world’s supermajor oil and gas companies and the brokerage houses at Lloyds of London.
Between travel and static workplace demands, these companies were seeing rising incidences of DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) which was endangering the lives of their staff and also clocking up large amounts of annual leave as the recovery is long and the impact is lifelong. Unfortunately, one company came to us in the wake of a workplace death.
Our task was to improve adherence to workplace health and safety in support of business travel and to implement strategies to improve employee health and wellbeing.
The challenge, when employees were tasked with finding their own flight socks, they often ended up with budget, ill-fitting off the shelf options from the airport and after one bad experience with “tourniquet socks” – they refused to wear them.
We worked with OH departments so that an employee received an alert before any lengthy travel (0ver 4 hours in a car/plane/train etc.) to have a health assessment with a nurse and be measured or measure themselves for medical-grade compression socks with the option of a telephone consultation.
We’ve inadvertently united this with a general health and wellbeing services as through our interactions with OH nurses and consultations with individual employees, we found that they are often seeking quality advice on lifestyle improvements, injury, pregnancy, varicose veins and return to fitness to help them combat the side-effects of a static work environment and regular travel.
The results have been very satisfactory with dramatic reduction in instances of DVT and employees reporting their bodies were coping better with travel thanks to proper socks and tailored advice. We boast over 90% compliance, with the alert system where employees are ensuring they source appropriate compression socks in advance of travel.
In addition to this, we offer support to employees in other aspects of their lifestyles, return to exercise, support during injury or pregnancy and preventative measures for varicose veins and other side effects of a sedentary office/travel-based lifestyle.
Employees and teams who are proactive about office-related fatigue by encouraging staff to move around, incorporate compression socks into their wardrobe and perform exercises at their desk are seeing benefits through reduced fatigue, improved morale during busy periods and employees reporting to be able to think more clearly at the end of the day as they are less distracted by tired/aching legs.
We have worked closely with these larger companies to work through an extensive system that works well for the health and safety department as well as the employees. This experience has allowed us to condense the service for smaller companies and individuals who are preparing a journey.