Your post prompts lots of questions!

To start with, I would ask: -
How often do they need to inject insulin?
Will they be able to carry an insulin needle in the workplace they will be working in?
Will they be able to carry a sugar source in the workplace they will be in?
Is the work going to be demanding resulting in more sugar/energy requirements?
Will the person be lone working at all?
Will the person be in an environment where their body will use more energy (e.g. Cold store or warehouse)?
How long will their shifts be?

Would you be able to provide some more information as to what sort of work the person will be doing, because the risk assessment will be affected by whether it is an office job, construction, chemical and so on...

Andrew

Not all diabetics are insulin users. The employee is best placed to say what he needs in the way of assistance.

I would not carry out a risk assessment for a diabetic employee as they are not a risk but an employee and a fellow human being.
Using that as a starting point I would as others have suggested talk to them and find out what their needs are including:
• Do they need somewhere quiet to inject insulin and to monitor their blood sugar( as said not all diabetics need to inject)
• If they are injecting using needles do they need somewhere to safety dispose of their needles and syringes
• Do they need extra breaks, which might be an issue if they are using plant etc
• Do they have other medical issues -sometimes diabetics have issues with their circulation.
But the main thing is to talk with them and to keep in touch with them.

I would do a risk assessment but it would be more along the lines of a discussion with the employee to find out their requirements. They are the diabetic and under the Equality Act you have to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that they can continue to function fully. This can be an HR function but can also be an EHS function.

The employee will know what requirements they have dependent on their personal circumstances. We have a lot of diabetic members on this forum and diabetic partners of members and every one will tell you a different story as diabetes is a very personal disease and no two sufferers have the same requirements.

Read up on diabetes, type 1 and type 2, look at the symptoms and consider what might be possible as a reasonable adjustment - can you change lunchtimes or shift patterns if there is fatigue, do you have somewhere for the person to go if they need to inject, etc, etc. Do all this before the meeting then you are prepared and can understand and take on board what the person is saying to you.

You don't need to find an immediate solution there and then, but in many cases a very small adjustment can make no difference to the employer and a massive difference to the employee.

Just be prepared to listen and empathise, but remember, they are the expert because you can bet your life they have read some weighty tomes about it since they were diagnosed.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Didnt expect so many differing answers! The Worderful world of Health and Safety...

I disagree that it is a medical assessment that is carried out - the medical assessment will be carried out by the specialists, nurses, doctors etc and the individual will be well aware of what they need.

In my opinion, the H&S person should chat with the individual and listen to what they say they need, and then formulate a plan as to how to make it happen - not to interpret what they need (quite rightly this is the medical assessment which is a specialist role).

i.e. conversation should go, I have Diabetes and need . . . to stay healthy - HSE bod will then work out how to enable this.

My daughter has T1 diabetes (not quite working age - she's only 3), but we know what she needs as would the individual in the workplace. Well thought out solutions, with a little bit of empathy and consideration and diabetes should not limit what someone can and can't do. Forward planning is key though.

Hope this helps.

Just to be absolutely clear there are only a couple of us here that can do the correct workplace medical assessment...

The advice given was to update supporting risk assessments such as First Aid or at the very least refreash the first aiders on the first response actions...you can't really do any more....without seriously straying onto thin ice.. :)

Nice one Hilary
Whenever there is a post about "risk assessing the disabled" it seems the start point is that the person is a bit dim as well.
Such a person knows far better than anyone how to deal with the extra risks in their lives.

Sorry folks, but I still have a problem with this "Risk Assessment".

Right and proper that the individual is consulted, but the employer should approach that from a position of knowledge and in an appropriate setting.
People take risks - sometimes because they fear losing their job, or because the health issue is deeply personal. They can (in the course of informal discussion) choose what (and what not) to tell you. This happens.

It is IMHO disingenuous to formulate a 'Risk Assessment' based purely on anecdotal and uneducated information - I wouldn't consider that approach and I certainly wouldn't put my name to the document.

Incidentally, the employer will also be creating another layer of sensitive information about an individual. The principles of the Data Protection Act would challenge that approach.

For me I just wish that manufacturers were far clearer on their instruction sheets. One drug emphasises the need for regular blood glucose testing throughout the day and then recommends merely to follow the testing regime set out by my doctor - who is bound by NHS guidelines not to provide self testing except for insulin users. Lots of weasel words around this topic I am afraid.

Precisely, sums up the situation perfectly in my opinion.

Assuming you don't want to involved a occy health (which would be my first port of call to find out what impact this may have on their day to day work....) I would be carrying out a risk assessment, yes.

HOWEVER, this would take the form of asking some questions about what happens, can happen and needs to happen and how this impacts on what they are doing. Then looking at how these things interact with their day to day job. For example, if they are an operator of heavy machinery the risks are far greater than if they are an office worker.

With regards to recording the risk assessment, it again falls down to how this interacts with their job. MHSWR says (re Risk Assessments):

(6) Where the employer employs five or more employees, he shall record—
(a)
the significant findings of the assessment; and
(b)
any group of his employees identified by it as being especially at risk

So if there are no significant findings, or no group of people Is particularly at risk, the assessment may end after speaking with the person.

I think we hear the works risk assessment and immediately think that it must be on paper, but in reality that is not the case. Where there is no significant risk, there is no need to record it.

I hope that helps.

To be suitable and sufficient a risk assessment must be carried out by a competent person.

Competence (sufficient knowledge, training and experience).

What knowledge/ training do you have to make you competent to assess the risk of a medical condition such as diabetes? Again bear in mind if things go wrong you may have to answer this question in court.

How can you properly assess what is required for them to work unless you have a full understanding of the medical condition.

That approach is flawed as it requires the employee to be open and honest. Some people may not want to discuss their condition, or may even attempt to hide symptoms issues etc as they fear it could effect their job security.

At what point did I state that a medical professional would not know what Diabetes was? All I was saying was that Diabetes effects different people in different ways based on a lot of factors, and the person who best knew those factors would be the individual themselves.

If the individual, for whatever reason, didn't want to disclose these factors to the H&S person then they probably wouldn't to a medical professional either - and without a detailed knowledge of their control plan and / or history would not be able to carry out an effective risk assessment either.

Just to re-iterate, I am not saying this should be anything to do with their medical care, that's something that they sort outside of work - what I am saying is that H&S can help to make it as safe as possible for the individual to carry out their work as effectively as possible.

I would never advise on something I am not competent to do so, but I believe for most H&S people that competence is knowing what questions to ask rather than knowing the answers - the answers should be provided by those doing the job, or living the condition - its our job to put those answers into practice.

Yes, maybe it should be occupational health's job but when my husband went to them with type 2 diabetes they made no recommendations for changing hours or "reasonable adjustments" whatsoever because working patterns are not part of their remit. My husband works for a big government organisation so it's not like we talking about Joe Bloggs down the road said "blah blah". They were completely useless. Even the doctor won't recommend changes to the working environment because these are at the discretion of management, not occy health and not the medical practitioners.

The changes to his shift patterns came through his manager and HR because he went and asked. If we'd left it up to Occy Health he'd have wrapped his car round a lamp post through extreme fatigue by now.

Again I must disagree.

Occy Health very often DO advise on working hours, whether it be advice on a phased return to work, working patterns, shifts, hours worked etc. Working hours are VERY much part of their remit in terms of advice given.

Nowhere under the Equality Act 2010 does it state that the person needs to go to Occupational Health for reasonable adjustments to be made. It is clear, concise and to the point. Below is an excerpt from this

"Making sure an adjustment is effective

It may be that several adjustments are required in order to remove or reduce a range of disadvantages and sometimes these will not be obvious to you. So you should work, as much as possible, with the disabled person to identify the kind of disadvantages or problems that they face and also the potential solutions in terms of adjustments.

But even if the disabled worker does not know what to suggest, you must still consider what adjustments may be needed.

For example:

A disabled worker has been absent from work as a result of depression. Neither the worker nor their doctor is able to suggest any adjustments that could be made. Nevertheless the employer should still consider whether any adjustments, such as working from home for a time or changing working hours or offering more day-to-day support, would be reasonable."

So even the Equality and Human Rights Commission accept that a doctor may not have the answer BUT you still have to consider reasonable adjustments. This is the same for all disabilities and diabetes is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.

I attach a link to the website and the particular page about reasonable adjustments. Occupational health is not mentioned, the doctor is not mentioned, but listening to the employee is mentioned.

http://www.equalityhuman...e/work-place-adjustments

If you can find a document that says reasonable adjustments must be assessed by occupational health then bring it on!

You know, I often look through threads here on subjects I know nothing or little about.

Sometimes, these threads are long and by the end I am confused and the time spent was useless.

:o(