Onsite Clinic vs OHC in India: Which Does Your Workplace Need?

An onsite clinic and an occupational health centre (OHC) both put a doctor and nurse inside your workplace, but they exist for different reasons. An onsite clinic is usually a choice: offices and campuses add one so employees can see a doctor without losing half a day. An OHC is usually an obligation: the Factories Act, state factory rules and the OSH Code 2020 require occupational health facilities at many hazardous and larger factories, with specific staff qualifications, examinations and records. If the law requires an OHC at your site, plan that first; if it does not, an onsite clinic sized to your headcount is usually the better fit.

This article explains the differences in purpose, legal basis, staffing, scope, equipment, records and cost drivers, and gives a simple way to decide. For the full service detail, see our pages on the onsite clinic in India and OHC services in India.

The short answer

Both can be digital: a Digital OHC or digital clinic layer adds virtual consultations, digital registers and digitally signed certificates, but tests that need physical examination are still done in person.

Purpose: convenience vs compliance

An onsite clinic is built around the employee's day. Someone with a fever, a headache, high blood pressure readings from last month's checkup or a question about a prescription walks in, sees the doctor and goes back to work. The clinic follows up abnormal checkup results, runs awareness drives with HR and stabilises emergencies before referral. Its value is measured in time saved, illness caught early and employees who feel looked after.

An OHC does all of that and more, because its core purpose is to protect workers from the hazards of their work and to prove that the employer has done so. That means examining workers before they are placed in a hazardous process, examining them again at the frequency the rules set, recording the results in prescribed formats, advising on fitness for specific jobs, investigating occupational illness and keeping emergency arrangements ready for the site's specific risks.

Legal basis

Office clinics are generally not required by law; a company sets one up because it wants to. Occupational health facilities, by contrast, are required at many factories under the Factories Act, 1948 and state factory rules, especially where hazardous processes are carried out or the workforce passes thresholds set in those rules. The OSH Code 2020 consolidates these duties as its rules take effect, and construction sites have their own requirements under BOCW rules. Thresholds and formats vary by state and process, so we confirm the rules for each site rather than quote one number for India. Our OHC requirements under the Factories Act and OSH Code article goes deeper.

Staffing

An onsite clinic is usually staffed by an MBBS doctor and a qualified nurse (GNM, ANM or BSc nursing), for hours set to your shifts — a few hours a day in a mid-size office, longer in a large campus. An OHC where rules require it is led by a doctor with the prescribed occupational health qualification, commonly the Associate Fellow of Industrial Health (AFIH); our AFIH qualification explained article covers this. OHCs at larger plants often run round the clock with several nurses, and may add a pharmacist, an ambulance driver and attendants.

In both cases the hard part is continuity: leave cover, replacements and keeping the same doctor long enough for employees to trust them. Ask any provider how they handle this before signing.

Scope of work

• Onsite clinic: walk-in consultations, basic checks such as BP and sugar, dressing and minor procedures within scope, follow-up of checkup and HRA results with consent, referrals, health talks and anonymised monthly reports
• OHC: everything above, plus pre-employment and periodic statutory examinations, hazard-specific tests such as audiometry and spirometry, fitness opinions for specific roles, occupational illness surveillance, injury management, emergency drills, prescribed registers and inspection support

Equipment and medicines

Both need a private consultation area, an examination couch, handwashing, basic diagnostic equipment, a medicine stock to an agreed list and bio-medical waste segregation. An OHC usually adds the equipment needed for statutory testing (or arrangements for it), a better-equipped emergency set-up and an ambulance room or arrangement where rules require it. Our OHC equipment and medicine checklist lists the typical items, and bio-medical waste rules for workplace clinics explains disposal.

Records

An onsite clinic keeps clinical records of visits and treatment, ideally in a digital system where each employee can see their own history. An OHC also keeps the registers, forms and certificates that the state rules prescribe for statutory examinations, and must be able to produce them at inspection. Digital records make both easier, but the format of statutory registers is set by the rules, so a digital system must be able to produce them in that format.

Cost drivers

Neither has a single price, because cost depends on the same handful of choices:

• Hours of cover: a few hours a day, a full shift or 24×7
• Staff mix: number of nurses, doctor qualification and whether a pharmacist or ambulance team is included
• Statutory work: how many workers need examinations and how often
• Equipment and medicines: what is already on site and what must be bought
• Emergency cover: AED, oxygen, ambulance arrangements
• Digital layer: records, dashboards and virtual consultations

Our OHC cost in India article breaks these down further. We quote both services against your scope rather than a rate card.

How to decide: four questions

1. Does the law require occupational health facilities at this site? If yes, you need an OHC, and the decision is how to staff and run it. Use our mandatory checkup finder and confirm with us.
2. If not, how many employees are on site at a time, and on what shifts? That sets the hours and staffing for a clinic.
3. What do employees actually need? Look at last year's checkup and HRA results, sick leave patterns and the reasons people leave work for medical visits.
4. What emergency risk does the site carry? A campus with thousands of people or a warehouse with heavy equipment needs stronger emergency arrangements than a small office.

Mixed estates

Many companies need both: an OHC at the plant, an onsite clinic at head office and partner-centre checkups everywhere else. That works well when all three report into one dashboard, use the same employee records and follow the same privacy rules. It also lets the same medical team review abnormal results whether they come from the OHC, the clinic or a partner lab.

In-house or outsourced?

Both models can be run with your own employees or through a provider. Outsourcing usually makes recruitment, leave cover, equipment and records easier; in-house can make sense for very large single sites. Our in-house vs outsourced OHC article compares them, and how to choose an OHC provider in India gives a checklist.

How Plan My Health helps

We set up and staff onsite clinics and occupational health centres across India, including Digital OHC services, and connect them to checkups, wellness sessions and first aid training on one platform. Start with the OHC services in India page if your site is a factory, or the onsite clinic in India page if it is an office or campus. For the bigger picture, read our guide to employee health in India.