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Re: [OCC-HEALTH] Employee consent for reports - GMC guidance The requirements of AMRA apply to a report written by a physician responsible for the care of the employee in conjunction with employment or insurance issues. It does not  apply to a report written by a nurse and it could be disputed whether it generally applies to a report written by the OH physician as they are not responsible for the clinical care of the client. Even though AMRA does not apply to reports I have written to Management, I routinely show the report to the client before it is sent. I have nothing to hide and they have the legal right of access to their health records anyway.

I question the view that reports written by an OH physician “tend to contain description of clinical detail”.  Clinical detail included within a response to management is totally inappropriate, no matter who writes that report. Management have no need to know clinical detail. They only need information regarding the implications of the client’s clinical condition in relation to workplace issues; clinical detail is unnecessary.

Anne

On 7/10/09 17:31, "N. Rostami" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Kim,
 
AMRA (1988 )does not apply to nurse’s report as their reports should not contain any clinical details and must only deal with the impact of the UMC on the functional capacity of the subject and thus the advice for adjustments. Refer to this document: page 9 , paragraph 3):
 
Holland-Elliot K, Harrison J, East J, Leeser J, Graham-Cumming A, Skidmore A, and Batty L (2007), Guidance for Occupational Physicians on Compliance with the Access to Medical Reports Act, www.facoccmed.ac.uk/library/docs/atmra_may08.pdf <http://www.facoccmed.ac.uk/library/docs/atmra_may08.pdf>

 
Bearing in mind that the OP reports tend to contain some description of the clinical details when for instance justifying a case for IHR, I think that it is good practice to comply with this Act at all times. I am aware that this can cause a lot of logistical issues in terms of the delay in the release of the OH report to the referrer until it is seen by the subject. As per the Act (and when obtaining a GP report)the subject has a choice to peruse the report prior to its release to the employer. The implication for the employer is that they have to arrange to obtain the employee’s written consent. We know that all written correspondence with an employee on long term absence are subject to delay and difficulties. However, in complying with this Act the employer has to discuss fully the reason for the referral to OH with the employee before getting their written consent, rather than just refer the employee to OH without their prior knowledge and the understanding of the reasons.
 
Perhaps, this will be a good reason for why the OH work for the functional assessment/ reasonable adjustments (with no reference to clinical details) will have to  be carried out by an OHA for efficacy of time! Whereas all complex cases and IHR cases will naturally be allocated to OP as the timescale for the receipt of the report may not necessary affect the absence length.
 
This said, it is good practice for the OHA to ask the subject if they would prefer to see the report before it is sent to the manager. It is possible to even read out the report to the subject over the phone to ensure that there are no inconsistencies, nor errors in the e.g. dates of the future interventions and such…

From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kim Scaysbrook
Sent: 07 October 2009 12:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [OCC-HEALTH] Employee consent for reports - GMC guidance

One of our OP's came in today and has been to a seminar on consent. As I understand what he was saying - the GMC have now interpreted OP role as providing care to individuals (even through they don't prescribe etc) and therefore all reports should have employee consent to release before they go to manager/HR etc on a similar basis to that used under AMRA ie they have the right to see the report and withdraw consent for it's release. He is going to discuss this with the other OP's and the Nurse Manager on Friday.

Alan  - have you heard anything about this?


At present, it doesn't seem to have filtered to the NMC for the OH Nurses but I imagine that their will be implications for us as well.

Your thought's appreciated



Kim


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