Fitness for work - the law and medical issues

Course Overview

Most employers and occupational health staff are faced with difficult decisions concerning fitness for work, whether this be recruitment decisions or decisions concerning a return to work after a spell of sickness absence. The impact of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 has made itself felt in many important decisions coming from the Employment Tribunals.

Audience

• Experienced practitioners who wish to update themselves in areas of occupational health and the law
• HR managers
• Occupational health physicians
• Nurses
• Line managers
• Health and safety managers

Skills Gained

• A better understanding of the law and good practice in dealing with ill health cases
• An understanding of the ethical issues of confidentiality and consent and what your doctors and nurses can and cannot tell you
• Up-to-date information on the new data protection rules and guidance from the Information Commissioner on worker's health and medical records
• Up-to-date knowledge of the impact of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the new DDA regulations 2004 and the most recent case law
• Model precedents for sickness absence and other ill health policies
• Questions answered by two leading experts in the field of occupational medicine and the law
• Ability to return to your company and implement some practical solutions to difficult problems

Course Outline

The law and ethics of medical assessments - data protection

• Latest FOM guidance on ethics 2006 - meaning of informed consent and confidentiality
• Hartman and other cases discussed
• The latest developments in data protection
• The implications of the Durant vs. FSA case
• The Information Commissioner's revised guidance following Durant
• Part 4 Code of Practice on 'Workers' Health Information'
• Impact assessments and how to do them

Age discrimination Regulations 2006 - health and age

Stress, anxiety and depression - how to deal with these issues

• The law and policy
• Hartman in CA discussed and Barber
• House of Lords
• The latest rulings on stress in the workplace including Mark Hone and Suzanne Vahidi's cases
• Surrey Police vs. Marshall and University of Staffordshire vs Morgan - revisited following new statutory definition of 'mental impairment' in DDA2005
• Making reasonable adjustments under the Disability

Discrimination Act 1995 as amended

• Examples of reasonable adjustments
• Recent case law including Williams vs. J Walter Thompson Group Ltd
• Sickness and stress
• triggered by discipline or performance investigations
• Drafting a sick pay clause to deal with 'stress' absences caused by disciplinary issues
• Offering options to those who go off with stress to avoid a disciplinary hearing - latest Guidance from ACAS
• Conduct during sickness absence
• Using private detectives and Human Rights Act 1998 and the use of covert surveillance
• HSE Stress Management Standards - how to adapt them to your own organisation the law and medical issues for 2006

Sickness absence - the latest good practice in managing sickness absence

• How disability discrimination overlaps with some sickness cases
• The definitions under the DDA Regulations 2003
• New definition of 'mental impairment' under 2005 Act
• New conditions included
• 'Excluded' conditions and new case law
• Edmund Nuttall Ltd vs. Butterfield
• Experts
• Using experts in DDA cases
• Dunham vs. Ashford Windows
• Obtaining medical records and conflicting reports
• Assessing medical reports
• Employees who refuse to give consent to disclosure of medical records and medical reports
• Hanlon vs. Kirklees Borough Council
• MED 3 and the 'new' GP contracts
• How to deal with persistent, short-term sickness and chronic, acute or long-term sickness absence
• How to deal with malingerers
• Bailey vs. BP Kent Oil Refinery Ltd
• Hutchinson vs. Enfield Rolling Mills
• Drafting a procedure for dealing with malingerers

How to assess fitness to return to work

• Asking the doctor the right questions
• Expert evidence

How to use your OHP service to assist in short-term, unrelated sickness absence cases and the acute or long term sickness cases

• Rehabilitation
• Early retirement on ill health grounds
• Permanent Health Insurance cases

Fitness for work - the law and medical issues / CM024927