Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Occupational Health (OH) is a medical speciality that is concerned with the effects of health on work and work on health while considering an individual’s health, ability and fitness to perform certain jobs/workplace tasks. OH is an advisory service aimed at supporting people in the workplace, looking at both physical and mental aspects of employee health. It’s designed to keep employees healthy and safe while in the workplace by advising both the employee and employer about health issues that could have the potential to increase work-related ill health. OH is designed to support both employers and employees, offering advice and guidance to support a proactive approach to managing the health of individuals. Everyone using the OH service will be treated fairly with privacy and dignity. 

OH Advisors and OH Physicians are qualified Nurses and Doctors who have also undertaken further specialist training and qualifications in the field of Occupational Health Medicine. They also have the appropriate background knowledge of health and safety and employment legislation. Most importantly they have experience in dealing with workplace-related health. 

OH offers a range of services including referrals for health advice, health surveillance, access to counselling services, Fitness to Teach assessments for students

No, OH doesn't provide a GP or an accident and emergency service. 

No, OH is unable to expedite hospital appointments, or have any influence over these.  

No, you are encouraged to discuss concerns directly with your line manager and arrange for them to make a referral to OH. This is so OH has as much information as possible from your line manager about your role, how your health may be affecting your ability to undertake the full range of activities in your role and if anything has already been put in place to support you.

If you are not comfortable speaking with your manager, you can discuss your concerns with your People Manager who can also arrange a referral for you.

A referral to OH gives you the opportunity to talk over, in confidence, any concerns you might have about your health in relation to your work with an experienced OH professional. There are several potential reasons, the most common being:

• health surveillance (dependent on risk assessment and health and safety requirements of your role)
• having been absent from work due to a health condition, injury or illness
• attending work but a health condition, injury or illness is affecting performance.

Yes; we require your explicit and informed consent to conduct the assessment and your consent to issue any report to your line manager/People Manager. If you do not consent to our assessment, and/or the provision of our report, your line manager must use other information available to them when managing a health concern. This may mean that they do not have the best available information to make decisions that may affect you and your health at work. The referring manager will be notified that consent to release the report has not been given.

Yes. You can withdraw or change your consent at any stage of the process and then the process stops. Once your assessment has been completed, the OH professional will write a report for your manager and/or People Manager. The OH professional will discuss with you at the appointment what they intend to write in your report. You are entitled to see the OH report before it is sent to your manager and/or People Manager to check for accuracy of factual content, but not medical opinion. You have the right to refuse the OH report being sent to your manager and/or People Manager. In this situation, an OH Advisor will explain the risks of refusing consent to ensure you are fully informed of the possible implications. OH will tell the referring manager that you have not given your consent to release the report.

OH will contact you directly to arrange the assessment or your line manager may liaise with you to confirm the assessment. The assessment may be conducted over the telephone, via a computer virtual meeting, or face to face and this will be specified at the time of referral.

We will obtain your informed consent to conduct the assessment and again at the time of the assessment, for when we issue a report to the referring manager following this. 

The report generated by a referral will be based on the information you provide at the time of assessment and the questions on the referral form asked by your line manager at the time of the assessment. The report may include the following information:

• opinion on your fitness for work
• nature of your reported health condition, injury or illness
• expected timeframe for recovery and/or return to work
• potential modified duties and/or workplace adjustments
• return to work plan
• recommendations to address any identified issues/barriers
• functional education and guidance on health condition management
• opinion on applicability of Equality Act provisions.

Following the assessment we may recommend further occupational case management/review assessments to help aid your recovery and/or return to work.

Yes; the referral will be shared with you via OPAS (the OH software system) when the OH appointment is booked.  This is both true under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) subject access request process and under General Medical Council medical/ethics guidelines. The referral form will form at least part of any discussion during the process, and there should be no surprises for you in the document. It is good practice for you to know what is included in the referral form ahead of the consultation although this may not be practicably possible in all circumstances.

It helps to have the following information to hand during the assessment (if applicable):

• details of any medications being taken (name and dosage)
• names and addresses of your treating doctors and/or specialists
• copies of any relevant correspondence or reports from your GP or specialist if available.

Appointment date and time:

If you are late for your appointment, or the clinician is unable to contact you on the telephone number provided, it may not be possible for your appointment to go ahead. If you are more than 15 minutes late, your appointment will be automatically cancelled and Brookes may be charged a cancellation fee. If you feel unable to proceed with your appointment or you need to cancel please notify your line manager/people manager at the earliest opportunity.

No. The OH clinician only has access to what is provided at the referral stage or from previous contact or anything you may take along to the consultation. Should there be any need for access to information held in medical records then OH will have to follow a set procedure to gain relevant information, including getting written consent from you prior to any application for information from treating physicians. 

No. Any clinical information taken during the consultation will be stored securely and confidentially and your line manager/people manager has no access to them. However, you will have complete access to all files, records, reports and notes pertaining to you. We only include medical information directly related to your fitness for work and the reported medical condition, injury or illness. This will generally include such information as the nature of the condition and its impact on your functional work capability. All medical information will remain confidential. The only exception to this rule will be if the OH Advisor/OH Physician considers it is necessary to breach medical confidentiality, because there is a significant risk or threat to the safety of others or that you may be a risk to yourself. This would be in line with the safeguarding guidance provided by the General Medical Council and Nursing and Midwifery Council. 

In the majority of situations, people will only need to be seen once by OH for them to provide advice to you and the referring manager. Sometimes it is not possible to give a clear opinion on your fitness after a single assessment. The OH clinician may need information from your treating doctor or want to look at where you work. They may also need to review you again to assess your progress before being able to judge when you might be ready for full duties or a return to work.

When further information from your treating doctor or specialist is required, OH will discuss this with you and ask you to sign a form giving your informed consent to approach these. You have the right to see the report your treating doctor or specialist provides before it is sent to OH.

The University's Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) includes access to confidential OH advice. The OH advice is provided by qualified OH advisors who are available for OBU staff to talk to Monday to Friday, 9.00am to 4.00pm. The OH advisor will be able to provide you with advice about how your health condition may be impacting on work and what could be considered to help manage the situation. This information will be able to help you decide on what the next best steps will be and whether it would be appropriate for you to seek a formal referral to the University's OH provider via your line manager or People Manager.

To access this service, contact the EAP's confidential helpline on 0800 028 0199. Let the service know you would like to speak to an OH advisor and a time will be arranged with you for an advisor to call you back.

Please be advised, this service is completely confidential and anonymous. All information provided is purely advisory. 

Yes. Under the Access to Medical Records Act 1990 & the Data Protection Act 2018, you are entitled to request a copy of the report at any time, you may also request any/all other records that Occupational Health possess of yours. Once you have consented to the report being written you have several options:

• you can choose not to receive a copy of the OH report
• you can choose to receive a copy of the report at the same time it is sent to your employer, via email or a printed copied in the post
• or you can have access to the report before it is sent to your employer. However, you cannot ask for the report to be amended unless the report contains factual inaccuracies.

OH professionals have a sound understanding and knowledge of the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 and where, in their opinion the provisions of the Act apply, they will suggest a range of recommendations for the referring manager to consider. It is for the referring manager to assess whether the advice or recommendations are practical and reasonable to implement for their operational circumstances. Agreed reasonable adjustments could then be incorporated into a Workplace Reasonable Adjustments Passport (WRAP). There is no requirement to use a WRAP, and reasonable adjustments are applied without a WRAP being in place, but if you wish you can download the template and discuss this with your line manager. More details on supporting access and inclusion for disabled staff are on the Staff disability webpage. 

Yes. All clinical information you give to the OH Advisor/OH Physician or the medical information obtained from your treating doctor and/or specialist is confidential: clinical and medical details are not given to anyone else outside the OH Service, without your prior informed, signed consent. The report back to your manager or People Directorate deals with the effects of your health on your fitness to work. Clinical and medical information is only included in a report where your line manager needs to know the detail, for example for safety reasons and only after you have given your express permission for this.

Only in exceptional circumstances will details be disclosed for health and safety reasons where there could be a risk to you or others and this is likely to be in terms of restriction and not medical detail. You will be informed of this if it is felt this becomes necessary.

No. The medical professional (Doctor or OH Advisor) are specialists in their field, they will conduct the referral and with consent from the individual produce a report in a neutral manner. The assessment is geared to offering the employer appropriate advice addressing any specific management concerns raised at the referral stage. The medical professional/clinician will inevitably not have a full knowledge of the background details or circumstances, relying upon the information provided in the referral, observations during the consultation/examination and what the subject of the referral tells them. The individual will be given opportunity to provide their perspective during the consultation, but OH are not there to take sides or act as advocate for either party. It is therefore very important for the referring manager to provide sufficient, factual and clear information during the referral process so the clinician has a balanced viewpoint.

No. OH is about keeping people healthy at work, and supporting you if you have a medical condition that could have an impact on your workplace activities; these medical conditions may affect you or the work they undertake. It is a support mechanism for an employer to access and support employees with health problems. In some cases, employers have a duty under the disability legislation to make reasonable adjustments or accommodations to the role or workplace, to accommodate an employee’s underlying medical condition under the Equality Act 2010, OH can provide advice and guidance on such adjustments.

The Occupational Health provider team uses a software system (OPAS-G2) and all managers should receive an email to invite them to access the system. The email will come from OPAS-G2 and will contain details of your username (firstname.surname) and a link to access OPAS-G2 where you will be able to set a password.  If in future you have forgotten your password and/or username, or if you have any difficulties, please contact the UKIM wellbeing team on 0191 512 8220 or you can email wellbeing@ukindmed.com.

When considering a referral for an OH opinion, we recommend that you speak with your People Manager. In certain instances a referral may not be the most appropriate course of action at that time, but making sure your People Manager knows the current situation is a sensible idea.

Before making the referral 

Please discuss the referral with your employee. It is important they are aware of the referral, why it is happening and what questions you want the OH clinician to address. There should be no information provided to OH as part of the referral that the employee is unaware of. In making the referral you will need the following employee details:

• employee name
• date of birth
• employee contact telephone number
• employee email address (not their OBU email address in case they are absent from work).

To get the best advice from OH, the referral will need to include enough detail for an appropriate assessment to be made - you must be as detailed as possible. This will help the clinician to understand the nature of the individual's work, advise whether any aspects might be affecting their health and consider any modifications or adjustments that may enable the individual to do their job.

The information should include:

• the reasons for the referral
• you will be able to select from some generic pre-determined questions from within the referral but you will be able to add additional questions you want answering 
• the individual’s recent attendance record (if applicable)
• current job description
• any relevant risk assessments (for example Display Screen Equipment, individual stress tool, pregnancy).

Yes. Managers need to ask the right questions of OH to get the right help. If the situation and questions are unclear then the report back from OH may not be what you or the employee wanted to know.  Therefore if there was a request to generally discuss a fictitious or anonymised situation to ascertain how best to make a referral, this can be discussed in general terms but not for specific cases. The general approach is that anything significant that needs to be covered in a consultation must be in writing and the employee should be aware of anything included. We will need a job description and a completed referral form. Clinicians cannot and will not introduce random information that is not documented and so essentially anything verbally discussed cannot be used in the consultation. 

No. The advice is given by an expert medical professional and an employer should give them serious consideration, however, recommendations are not binding and are simply advice. It is for the referring manager to assess whether the advice or recommendations are practical and reasonable to implement for their operational circumstances. You may want further guidance from others such as the People Manager, Strategic People Partner, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion team or the Health and Safety team, in making a decision.

OH acknowledges it is in everyone’s best interests to get issues resolved as quickly as possible. Often an employee may feel that they are unable to attend formal meetings - for example disciplinary, capability, grievance - because of ill health. OH follows The Society of Occupational Medicine guidance when assessing an employee's fitness to attend and recommends that an employee is fit to attend a formal meeting if able to meet the following criteria: 

• understand the issues being addressed 
• distinguish right from wrong
• instruct another to represent their own interests (for example, a trade union representative)
• understand and follow the proceedings, if necessary with extra time and written explanation. 

No. The OH trained staff are medical/nursing specialists who will give their view on whether the Equality Act provisions will apply. However, whether the disability provisions of the Act apply or not is a legal decision (and not a medical decision) made in a tribunal or higher court. Legal decision would almost certainly have considered any medical opinions offered and therefore the OH opinion should count in this respect. 

No. In short, an employee cannot be compelled to attend any OH assessment. It is therefore essential to fully explain to and engage your employee in why you wish to go down this route and what you want to achieve by doing so. There may however be restriction to duties without this assessment, and you can make decisions without the benefit of this assessment where an employee refuses such assessments. 

Confidentiality in the workplace is a sensitive issue, and this is particularly true in relation to information about health and medical conditions. The law on confidentiality about health and medical data applies to everyone in the workplace and is covered under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018. This classes medical data as “special category” and the processing of this data is not allowed unless you give specified and informed consent to sharing the information (unless in exceptional circumstance there is legitimate risk identified and a need to protect your interests/safety at work). In OH following a referral, a confidential report will be written in answer to the questions raised in the referral document. This will usually give details about your ability to function, whether or not and when the state of health will improve, it does not need to have any medical details unless this is agreed. Such a report is only issued with the full and informed consent of the individual the report is about (the data subject). 

A record of when and how consent was received and of the information provided to the data subject at the time of consenting must be kept. The consent document indicates who the report can be provided to: for example, usually, but not always, the referring manager and a named individual in People Directorate, with a copy for the individual the report is about. Specific and informed consent means you must first be aware of the identity of who is processing your personal data (the staff in OH), and those who will be receiving the information will need to be expressly named (the manager and member of staff in PD). It is not enough to simply define a category of third parties (for example, a generic mailbox). As GDPR also applies to those who receive the report, they need to ensure this report is stored securely including that this information cannot be further shared without consent. There is no specific time limit for consent however, consent will need to be reviewed regularly to check the relationship, processing and purposes have not changed. Processes must be in place to refresh consent at appropriate intervals for example if at a future date there is any further request for copy of the report, OH will not share this information without further consent to do so. 

Oxford Brookes Data Protection

Following a referral to OH, a recommendation may be made that staff are referred on for counselling through the University's OH provider. Employees will be able to access up to six counselling sessions and where the counsellor is of the opinion that additional sessions are required this will be confirmed with the Director of Occupational Health and Safety. 

Employees are also able to access confidential counselling through the Employee Assistance Programme by contacting 0800 028 0199. This service is available 24/7, 365 days a year and does not require a referral from OH. No information is provided to the University other than the number of staff accessing the service and the broad reasons for attendance.

The need for health surveillance in your role will be confirmed by a risk assessment of the work you do. In many instances, due to the infrequent nature of exposure to health risks, health surveillance may not be required. Where health surveillance is a requirement of the role, completion of questionnaires and/or attendance at a statutory health surveillance clinic will typically follow a schedule such as the one below:

• baseline – prior to, or on commencement of, exposure, then;
• six weeks later, then;
• three months later - if all results are acceptable, then;
• annual/three-yearly recall.

There may be deviation from this schedule, depending on the outcome of any assessment. The recall period is always stated on your Notification of Fitness letter which is emailed to you and your manager immediately after surveillance has taken place.

In certain situations even though health surveillance is not recommended for your role, due to the possible sporadic nature of exposure it may be recommended that health screening is undertaken.

Where individuals are not exposed to health risks on such a regular basis or to a level that wouldn't require health surveillance, the intermittent nature of exposure may warrant staff undertaking a health screening questionnaire to make sure they are not experiencing any adverse effects. This will be done by staff completing a health screening questionnaire, and depending on the responses it may be sensible for staff to be referred for a more detailed health check.

No (not usually). There are a few specialist Health Surveillance / Medicals such as for Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS) and/or Asbestos where an OH Physician is expected to make a diagnosis. However, to be officially diagnosed many illnesses can take weeks or even months, a battery of tests and require specialist Consultants to give an opinion. An OH assessment is simply not meant for this purpose; its primary aim is to inform management about the situation and in particular about the employee's capabilities in respect of working safely in their role. 

Further information can be found on the University's Wellbeing webpages.

If you have an accident or near miss at work/study, please report it through the Health and Safety Incident Report Form on the Service Now portal (login required).

Speak to your line manager/People Manager who will arrange for a referral to OH if appropriate.

Speak to your line manager/People Manager who will arrange for a referral to OH if appropriate.

The Oxford Brookes University maternity policy can be found on the employment policies webpage.