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Self certification medical forms for night workers
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Posted By Mir-cat
Can anyone give me some advice please. I am about to issue annual self certification medical forms to our staff that undertake night work. However, I have been told not to include the sub-contractors (who work for us a lot!).
My question? If we have a duty to identify any illness / disability etc of our employees as it might be dangerous, do we not have a similar duty to know if our sub-contractors are safe? While I am aware that we do not have the right to ask for personal information, do we not have a right to ask for a basic self certification in order to protect ourselves from liability?
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Posted By Jim Walker
I always treat subbies in the same way as our own staff where H&S is concerned.
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Posted By Andy Brazier
I'm not really sure what you mean by self-certification, but assume it is a questionnaire like the one provided by DTi.
It sounds like a good idea, but I can see a couple of potential problems. What will you do if a problem is identified? Also, I can see that subbies may be less than truthful in completing if they think their job may be in jeopardy.
You need to make sure you are not asking subbies to do something that could cause a problem. Also, that the subbies employer is doing what they need to do to comply with the law, which as I understand is to control working hours and offer health surveillance.
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Rank: Guest
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Posted By Mir-cat
I understand what you are saying about not allowing people to do things that put them at risk but as I understand the requirement it is related particularly to night work and some illnesses are aggravated by night work. I am told that diabetics should not work nights, (I assume it messes with their body clocks and regular sugar intakes). Therefore the answer to what would you do about it is likely to be not allow them to work nights or worst case scenerio is do not employ them for that work.
I agree that they may be less than truthful if their job depends on it but surely their signed form is to give us assurance and if they were found to have made a false statement it would place the liability on them.
I would appreciate others opinions of this view.
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