What is the Society of Occupational Medicine?
SOM is a professional society, not a college with regulatory authority over the practice of medicine: that function in the United Kingdom belongs to the General Medical Council. It is a charitable organization registered in England and Wales under number 1184142 and in Scotland under number SC049793, and is also incorporated as a company limited by guarantee, registered with Companies House in the UK under number 11380861.
Its headquarters are located in London, at 2 St Andrews Place. It was founded in 1935 under the name Association of Industrial Medical Officers, a name that reflected its origin linked to company medicine in the first half of the 20th century, and adopted its current name in 1965.
Since 2012, it has expanded its membership beyond occupational health physicians to include other healthcare professionals with an interest or activity in occupational health, such as occupational health nursing, physiotherapy, or occupational psychology.
Purpose and scope of action
SOM declares its objective to be the protection of health at work and the prevention of work-related injuries and illnesses, through three lines: occupational health research, the professional development of its members, and advising the government, the public health system (NHS), and other organizations.
Its primary focus is the United Kingdom, where it maintains working relationships with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), and the joint Work and Health unit, as well as shared representation with the Faculty of Occupational Medicine before European Medical Organizations (UEMS). It is also a founding member of an international collaborative network of occupational medicine societies and maintains working relationships with organizations such as the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH), and the World Health Organization.
Functions and main lines of work
SOM’s activity is structured on several fronts declared in its institutional documentation.
- Publications. He edits Occupational Medicine, a leading academic journal in the field, and maintains a catalog of guides and technical reports on occupational and workplace health.
- Thematic groups. It organizes networks of specialized interest, including a research forum and academic field and groups focused on musculoskeletal health at work and women’s health in the workplace.
- Professional development. Offers continuing education and refresher courses for physicians and other occupational health professionals.
- Institutional consulting. Participates in the design of occupational health policies alongside British government and health agencies.
Contribution to safety and health at work
SOM provides the medical perspective of the discipline, distinct from the preventive technique itself. While a prevention service or a prevention technician assesses and controls workplace risks, occupational medicine deals with the clinical monitoring of the worker’s health in relation to those risks: it is the discipline that underpins health surveillance in the Spanish system , although the British and Spanish institutional frameworks are not comparable, and SOM has no role in Spain.
Its effective contribution to occupational safety and health is therefore indirect from the perspective of a non-British professional: it does not certify prevention services or set mandatory standards outside the United Kingdom, but its academic output and clinical guidelines, published openly or through Occupational Medicine, constitute a technical reference consulted internationally by occupational medicine professionals.
Relationship with the ORP International Foundation
SOM brings a medical perspective on prevention to the ORP International Foundation’s institutional advisory committee: it is a British professional society that brings together physicians and other healthcare professionals dedicated to occupational health, founded in 1935 and headquartered in London. Its presence distinguishes its contribution from that of generalist occupational safety and health organizations on the same committee.
Practical application
For an occupational physician or occupational health professional outside the UK, the practical value of SOM lies in its documentary output: the journal Occupational Medicine and its clinical guidelines offer verifiable evidence and technical criteria on issues such as return to work after sick leave, occupational musculoskeletal health, and the clinical management of occupational risks.
It is not a normative source for Spain or Latin America, where health surveillance is governed by its own legal framework, but it is a useful academic reference to compare clinical criteria with those applied by the British health and preventive system.
