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The article examines the impact of an occupational health (OH) nursing and occupational medicine crisis thereby raising concerns on the future sustainability of a specialist workforce. A commentary by U.S.-based Nyla Medlock titled "Defining the future of physicians globally," noted that healthcare changes will result in a demand for primary care and clinical specialty medicine services. Medlock stated that many are retiring from the specialist workforce than are being trained to replace them.

The article reflects upon the lack of evidence-based practice in occupational health nursing and guidelines from the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Effectiveness (NICE) covering absence from work due to illness. The author criticizes occupational health nurses for not engaging in research or contributing to the development of the NICE guidelines that determine practice.

The author argues that occupational health in the British National Health Service (NHS) will not be taken seriously until it is out of human resource (HR). The author mentions the pledges made by Lord Darzi on occupational health in his review of the NHS. The pledges provide a standard for future change in health provision that will be applied to the NHS. While they are directed towards primary care trusts (PCT), they provide a new benchmark for others that provide health services to the public sector, the author said.

The article offers observation on the growth of the occupational health (OH) market in the U.S. The best publicised source of market growth has been salary inflation, and OH practitioner salaries have certainly increased by 50% since the millennium. When salary inflation is taken into account, at least all the suggested growth can be explained.