First question I would be asking is what caused the COPD, was it a work related task or a life style choice of the employee.

The hint would be in the name:

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

You can quibble about it not being a "real" disease...

However, the person diagnosed with COPD is unlikely to be impressed.

It may be caused by Bronchitis, Emphysema, Asthma or Bronchiectasis etc.

Either way, the person is ill. He/She will have difficulty breathing and because of that He/She will have difficulty excreting the mucous that is produced normally anyway.

As a result, the person will have reduced lung capacity and an increased incidence of respiratory infection.

Unfortunately, as a result of the difficulty breathing and mucous retention, clearing the infection will take longer than usual, and many find the infection returns quite rapidly.

Antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria also make the treatment difficult.

Usual treatment will be bronchodilators to open the airways, of which there are several different drugs available...long or short acting.

Inhaled corticosteroids are frequently prescribed, to ease the inflammation.

In an acute exacerbation oral Corticosteroids may be precribed, such as Prednisalone, acompanied with high doses of antibiotics.

Either way, a person diagnosed with COPD is ill, the illness is incurable, and will cause them trouble for the rest of their life.

IF you have read the IOSH magazine then there is now a dirrect link to with people who use a lot of bleach so might have to look at the job. It might not be a real disease but it's not great when you can't breath.

I know what COPD is: my dad died of it. What I am trying to address as what we can do as H&S professionals about it. A simple diagnosis of COPD does not tell us what caused it or if it is work related.  It gives the GP some direction on how to treat the person but the employer doesn’t know if something at work is making it worse. It might be that the employer needs to change work practices, or arrange for the person to move to another job or worst case let them go. A simple COPD diagnosis will not tell you this.   I think that the person suffering with this illness (I never said it was not an illness) deserves an answer to this, rather than just tea and sympathy.

Originally Posted by: 102paul

An employee has telephoned this morning to say he has been diagnosed with COPD. 

What are our next steps? The employee is not off work sick, do we need to contact the employee's GP?

Why would you need to contact their GP if they are not off sick?

What role do they currently do and how does this diagnosis affect that?

Do you think that the COPD (or attributing illnesses) was caused by their work?  have they had long term exposure to harmful pollutants?

What did they hope to achieve by telling you this?  Do they want any next steps to happen or are they happy to manage their condition as it is right now?

I am not saying and I have never said that COPD is not a serious illness and a terrible diagnosis but it is not a real disease as it does not have one clear unambiguous cause: You are exposed to this and you get that. It is a diagnosis that doctors use so that they know what to treat but it does not tell you what the underlying cause is, whether it is work related or not and what should be done to manage the illness for an individual in a particular workplace.