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I know where the misunderstanding has arisen. As the rep of the employer, when you know something, the employer is deemed to know. This is what the insurance company will have told them. If you are aware of a case of occupational disease, under RIDDOR there is a duty to report it. All you are obliged to inform the employer of is what they need to do to safeguard the health of the employer so they can exercise their duty of care - after all if they didn't need your OH qualification to interpret health problems into working advice to management, OH would not exist. So reassure them that you will let them know if an employee needs a restriction, redeployment or other protection from the normal business. If you give them a standard format they will be able to understand better what info they are asking for! Lucy ----- Original Message ----- From: OccHealth To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 7:09 PM Subject: If I know they should know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm asking for advice here. Could you tell me where i stand? I have an HR dept who are saying that if I know health info about an employee I am obliged to disclose this to them because if i didn't disclose it as soon as i learned of it they the employer would be liable when/if the employee's health became worse as a result of work. They say I am obliged by law under duty of care to inform the HR dept of this employees health issue(s) regardless of whether I have permission or no. Basically they say if I am aware of the info the employer would be deemed to have known about it and would therefore be vulnerable / liable if they were do nothing about it and things deteriorate healthwise for the employee. I have said that if i deemed the info important enough to to feel the Co. should know then i would discuss it furthger with the employee and try and obtain permission to disclose it thus helping the employee at the same time. But if i don't get that permission then i could not disclose. Clarification would be very helpful. Many thanks Helen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please remove this footer before replying. For list archives and documents, go to http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/occ-health.html for list archives For jobs in Occupational Health, go to http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/OHJobs/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please remove this footer before replying. For list archives and documents, go to http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/occ-health.html for list archives For jobs in Occupational Health, go to http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/OHJobs/