Ellie
Both yourself and her GP are not in possession of the facts concerning this ladies case. He is
patently unaware of the job she does for a living and therefore should not have agreed to her
returning there until satisfied she was not a danger to herself or anyone else, and it is not his
job to do this anyway but that of the companies Occupational Health Service. As has been pointed out
before Med 3's are just an opinion and in this case it is not an informed one.
You cannot make an informed decision regarding this lady without knowledge of her condition, the
treatment for it and the management plan both short and long term for her condition. It is
imperative that she gives you consent to obtain this information from her GP or consultant
specialist which I do not doubt she is under the care of considering the length of time she has been
away from work.
It would appear that the GP has requested that she not operate machines due to the anti-convulsive
medication she must be on, epilim can make you unsteady on your feet, shaky and confused.
Considering this I do not believe that you can complete a risk assessment effectively without this
information. If the patient refuses consent for you to contact either her GP or consultant for
information I would suggest you ring or write to her GP pointing out the fact that you cannot
effectively advise her employer without this information and ask the GP to discuss this with his/her
patient and then re-contact you following the meeting.
In the interim I would recommend that she not work with machinery until you can complete an
effective risk assessment and if her employer cannot find suitable alternative duties for her until
then, she should self-certify and review with her GP until she can be effectively cleared to carry
out the duties required of her.
Cheers
Pete
>>> Ellie Paige <[log in to unmask]> 21/02/2007 14:50 >>>
Dear List, I would greatly value your opinion on a tricky subject.
One of our employees, has been diagnosed with epilepsy. She is controlled on medication, but is a
very poor historian, cannot remember what meds she is on and has forgotten to bring in the box or
prescription several times for OH to see the type of meds. She has returned to work but states that
her GP has advised her not to work with machinery.
We are part of the textile industry and make quilts and pillows, so a lot of machinery is in
operation, although it is not manually operated. The duties she will be required to undertake have
been risk assessed, and she has been asked to work with an automated machine which pushes wadding
through into a pillow case. She will be on the receiving end, ie she places the pillow case onto the
'nozzle' and the wadding is 'blown' into it. She will be part of a small team, and if she has any
incidents, the machinery will push her away into a safe area, as opposed to pulling her in. there
are no external moving parts, just the air blowing through. No night working, full day shift with a
phased return to work, as she has been off 8months so far.
She has stated she is unable to undertake this as it includes working with machinery, and has
declined permission to contact her GP to see exactly what advice has been given.
I know this is long winded, but does anyone have any advice or options out there at all. Is the
company wrong to consider her working in such an area, despite the risk assessment??
Any answers gratefully received
Ellie
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please remove this footer before replying.
For list archives and documents, go to
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/occ-health.html
FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES AND EVENTS:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/filearea.cgi?LMGT1=OCC-HEALTH
For Occupational Health jobs, go to http://OHJobs.drmaze.net
Find out about Occupational Health Nursing Education in UK at
http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in6232/aohne/
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