The Council for Work and Health is a company, limited by Guarantee (Registration No: 08364702). It is managed by a Board of Directors, elected by Council Members for a term of three years. The Chair is elected by the Board for a term of three years.
Steven Boorman CBE
After a 30 year career in occupational health involving a huge variety of different businesses and experiences, it is a privilege to be invited to take on the Chair in 2018 after Diana Kloss has expertly led the first 7 years. My experience in Royal Mail, in roles that varied from CMO, Director of Health & Safety, and CSR Director, over nearly 21 years, taught me the value of working collaboratively with a broad range of professionals to enable workplace health improvement. I was pleased to contribute to the arguments that show that good work and good health are associated and that successful businesses benefit from happy, healthy staff. The 2009 review of NHS staff Health and Wellbeing, which I was invited to undertake by the then Health Secretary, Alan Johnson (an ex Royal Mail employee) highlighted that good staff health contributed to better patient care, improved efficiency and greater likelihood of succeeding against Regulatory targets. The NHS continues to make progress on recommendations from this work today.
The Council for Work and Health is well placed to contribute to the accelerating work and health agenda. The Government’s strategy articulated in its recent “Improving Lives” consultation and Command Paper has some challenging opportunities to deliver real change and improvement. However delivering these will take expertise and experience to develop ideas and approaches to support work and health improvements. Council and its members have that experience and knowledge and I look forward to working with them at an exciting time for work and health in the UK.
Steve is Director Employee Health, Empactis, a technology innovation firm that helps organisations and managers support employee health.
Robin Cordell
Robin Cordell is the Deputy Chair of the Council for Work and Health. Robin has been a Member of the Board of Directors of the Council for Work and Health since his election in May 2016, having previously been a member of the Council in his capacity as the President of the Society of Occupational Medicine. Over this time he taken a full part in the activities of the Council, including leading on strategy development, and on the Council’s submission in 2018 on the Government’s consultation on Health and Disability. He also represents the Council on the Public Health England Health and Work Advisory Board.
Robin is also engaged in the development of occupational health practice in his capacity as the current President of the Occupational Medicine section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He has arranged successful one-day academic meetings on creating healthy, motivating workplaces (in Dec 2017, with other members of the Council speaking), on Work and Cancer (jointly with Macmillan in March 2018) and Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome (jointly with the Society of Occupational Medicine in May 2018). Future topics include Ethics, the Law and Data Protection in Work and Health (jointly with the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, Nov 2018).
As Medical Director of Cordell Health Ltd, a social enterprise providing specialist occupational health services, Robin is engaged with employers and others to foster cultures that promote and protect health at work, and to sustain those who have health problems and disabilities in work. He undertakes his own clinical work as a consultant occupational physician from the main Cordell Health clinic in Wokingham, and from regular clinics each week in London and Bristol.
Mandy Murphy
Mandy is the Deputy Head of the National School of Occupational Health. The school aims to establish quality management frameworks for specialist education of professionals working in of Occupational Health (including nurses, doctors, physios and other rehabilitation specialists).
Mandy is an Occupational Health Nurse by professional background with over 19 years’ experience of delivering, managing and commercialising Occupational Health Services. Her most recent service role as General Manager at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust until April 2016. As a specialist in Occupational Health Mandy has contributed to many national expert committees influencing national policy in the arena of health and work, including the expert committee for the Boorman’s Review of Health and Wellbeing in the NHS, informing the quality standards for SEQOHS and the development of MoHaWK (a national benchmarking tool for OH services).
Mandy is also a qualified Coach Practitioner, providing coaching services to young people and individuals going through professional transitions either into work for the first time, changing jobs/promotion or return to work following long periods of absence. Mandy was re-elected to the Board at the AGM in May 2021.
Joy Reymond
Joy trained as a clinical psychologist in the U.S. and Australia. In addition to her clinical practice, her Australian career included research and teaching in academia and public service in Occupational Health, Safety & Welfare, and completing her MBA.
Joy’s Canadian experience includes disability insurance in both public and private sector as chief Adjudication Officer an VP Disability. In the UK Joy has specialised in developing the vocational rehabilitation profession, as Head of Rehab for a major disability insurer, and trustee for the Vocational Rehabilitation. In 2015, she was awarded the Post Magazine’s Rehab First Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Vocational Rehabilitation.
Most recently she has returned to her consulting, research and analysis roots, leading an innovative programme to support gender inclusion in the workplace.
Nicola Suckley (text to follow)
Professor Gail Kinman
Gail is Visiting Professor of Occupational Health Psychology at Birkbeck University of London. She is a Chartered Psychologist and a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and the Academy of Social Sciences. Gail has published widely in the field of occupational health psychology, with a particular interest in the wellbeing of people whose work is emotionally demanding. Her recent work focuses on developing and evaluating multi-level interventions to enhance resilience, work-life balance and wellbeing in health and social care organisations. This is being used to inform organisational change initiatives and an ‘emotional curriculum’ in the sectors. Gail has recently been commissioned by bodies such as the Royal College of Nursing Foundation, the Louise Tebboth Foundation and the Society for Occupational Medicine to conduct national reviews of the work-related wellbeing of healthcare professionals. She is currently working with Public Health England, the Society of Occupational Medicine, and the British Psychological Society to formulate guidelines to help organisations and individuals manage the demands posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.
Professor Kevin Bampton
Professor Kevin Bampton LLB FHEA FCMI is Chief Executive Officer of the British Occupational Hygiene Society (the Chartered Society for Worker Health Protection). Kevin has a particular interest in health equality, understanding the interests of hard-to-reach groups and the interaction between law, policy and education in this field. He was previously a UN Special Legal Advisor, a Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) legal advisor and have held Professorial Chairs in Public Law and in Comparative Justice, as well as Visiting Fellowships in both Health Sciences and in Good Governance.
He is an expert in the challenges of health rights of workers in hard-to-reach areas, he has also worked as advisor to the Police Federation of England and Wales and acted as advisor in this area to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS). His work with specialist bodies includes supporting the development of the investigation capability around health of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and in the field of labour abuse and modern slavery. He is an independent scrutineer of hate crimes for the Crown Prosecution Services, and is an acknowledged equality law expert.
As CEO of BOHS, he has been at the heart of the Society’s IIRSM award-winning support for workers during the pandemic. Since 2021, Kevin has helped health professional bodies to develop respiratory risk tools, now published by the RCN. As Chair of the BSI Health and Safety Committee, has led the development of a new strategy to make the Institute’s work more relevant and accessible to the UK’s businesses.
Kevin continues to be on the advisory boards for several significant research and innovation projects in the field of occupational health protection and monitoring. He have written extensively on the relationship between health protection and worker rights in recent years and provided written and oral evidence to Parliament on the subject. Kevin is currently Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Gloucestershire and is also on the advisory Board for Occupational Safety and Health Services Consultants Register.
Helen Kay
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Professor Diana Kloss MBE
The Founding Chair of the Council was Professor Diana Kloss MBE, who was made Honorary President in February 2018.
Previous Board members include:
Natalie Beswetherick, Nattasha Freeman, Jan Vickery, Joanna Wilde, Hilary Todd, Christina Butterworth, Olivia Carlton, Karin Bishop, Mike Goldsmith, Bev Messinger and Tom Stewart.