Hi All,
I would really appreciate knowing what you are currently doing in your practice about the following.
I am looking at changing my practice regarding the process of sending my OH reports to managers. In the past I have discussed the content of the report with the employee prior to writing it and sending it to management and obtained their verbal consent for the report to be sent. I also offered to send them a copy of the report if they so wished. Revised guidance from the GMC in 2009 stated that an OH doctor should ask the worker whether he wanted a written copy of the report prior to it being sent to management and, if he said that he did, allow him a reasonable time to decide whether to withdraw consent to it being sent. Due to some recent case law, it would now appear advisable for OH Advisors to adopt this practice. I have discussed this with the HR manager and despite my best efforts to reassure that this will make very little, or most often, no change to my reports and advice she remains concerned. Timescales of doing this are an issue when advice is needed quickly.
My question is (I am getting to one I promise!) What do you do if an employee withdraws consent? Do you allow them to in effect dictate and rewrite the report omitting any information they don't want in there?!(I am not comfotable with this and afraid that this may compromise any advice I give) or do you not send any report at all and advise the manager of the reason and that they are entitlled to act without it?
My advice and recommendations are very unlikely to change despite what an employee requests, so would it be acceptable to split my report into information regarding the employees medical status and my advice to managers and only allow the employee to request changes to the medical content? But then this may also mean referring to a condition they don't want disclosing!I do also recognise that an employee can refuse permission for any sort of report to be sent.
My head is spinning!!
Regards
Lesley
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