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ADVERTORIAL
Express Medicals is a leader in the field of occupational health. Its senior rail consultant, Dr Steve Malleson, has 40 years’ experience of rail and transport medicine. He speaks with Rail Director
Keeping the health of railway workers on track
T
he workforce is vital to the optimum performance of the UK’s railways in moving people and goods safely and efficiently. But it is an industry with inherent hazards and associated risks that all have the potential to impact on health - while a worker’s health, in turn, can impact the efficiency and safety of the railway. Express Medicals is a leader in the field of occupational health, supporting employers to manage the impacts of health on work and work on health for the rail industry for the last 27 years. The doctor-led teams, highly trained in all areas of occupational health, deliver services at your site or at one of its 17 clinics. “It’s an excellent company, family-orientated and close-knit. It has grown from a tiny enterprise Dr Dan Hegarty set up in 1996, to a team of more than 100 staff,” said chief medical officer Dr Steve Malleson. “We are impartial assessors of medical situations so the manager can manage the interaction between health on work and work on health, almost like a translator. At the end of the day, it is all to do with safety.”
A new direction Dr Malleson qualified in medicine in 1975. After eight years in general medicine, he embarked on specialist occupational health training with London Transport in 1983. “I’m essentially a railway doctor, having started after 10 years in the NHS, when I was in my early 30s,” he said. “Like a lot of career movements, I saw an advert for a trainee at London Transport and thought – this is where I live and my first child is on the way, so I could do with a more stable job. I haven’t looked back. “At the time, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and was working part time as a site chippy and the other half of the week at the London Blood Transfusion. Having done a decade in hospital work, I just felt that wasn’t for me, so I was searching for something different.”
September 2023
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