I am looking at the question of EO information held on the personnel
computer. We are entering the information provided by new starters, and
are planning a survey to fill in gaps and update information.
There seems to be a big difficulty in the area of disability - what 'the
employer' 'knows'. Personnel and therefore our database know what
applicants and new starters have decided to tell them. However,
Occupational Health knows more - information which is given to them in
medical confidence - and this knowledge is deemed to be known by the
employer. Where a risk assessment means that a person's work has to be
varied in some way, the disability becomes known to personnel and the
department concerned; where a disability is revealed to Occupational Health
but needs no action, the knowledge remains medical confidential.
There seem to me to be the following possible courses of action:
1. O. Health returns a form to personnel for each new employee certifying
fitness to work, and based on a medical questionnaire and (in some cases)
an examination. The medical questionnaire could be amended to ask for
consent to pass on the disability type as a code to personnel (i.e. not
detailed medical information)
2. It could be that a code would not be a breach of confidentiality and
could be passed on via the medical clearance form without further
permission.
I think it may be important to flag up disabilities (more so perhaps than
for ethnicity). Has anybody else grappled with this question?
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