Hi,

I was just wondering if I could put some questions to you… 

I currently work for a College and we have a Driving and Vehicle Policy that requires all staff who drive on College business to be authorised by their manager to do so.  We have fleet vehicles (FLTs, mini-buses, vans, pool cars) and staff also use their own vehicles.  The authorisation process starts with the member of staff who needs to drive completing a three question health questionnaire which is assessed by Occupational Health with any applicable restrictions/ modifications passed back to them and their manager for action as appropriate (those who drive FLTs have a further FLT health assessment).  Once the assessment is complete the manager must then check all the relevant licenses (and paperwork if own vehicle) and sign an “authorisation form”.  In response to user feedback over the last couple of years we developed a replicate web based system, named ROAD (I know very imaginative!).

Once a member of staff logs into ROAD they complete the health assessment (same 3 questions) to confirm fitness to drive in the first instance and managers then authorise their staff to drive, confirming that they have seen and checked a drivers documents e.g. licence, insurance. ROAD links to HR data, auto populates and controls drivers and managers details, makes use of in built workflow and automatic email triggers to help simplify the process and speed up approval.

So after the waffle to the questions…

·         Do you have similar system in place in your workplace? 

·         Is it paper-based or web-based?

·         If web-based- is it well used/ well adhered to?

·         Do you have a fuller health assessment?

Kind Regards,

Louise Newsham

Occupational Health Technician