I suspect the HR team are thinking of the impending Equality Act due to be enacted in October 2010 if I recall correctly. This and the DDA of course. However- Regulation 6 of the management regs requires the employer to carry out health surveillance. The PEMQ or examination will give you a baseline to work from. Paris v Stepney Borough Council is a civil case you need to consider. Special duty of care owed to those with disabilities. The DDA only requires an employer to make reasonable adaptations to a work area. An electrician cannot use different coloured cables to suit a colour blind person. Quarry work could not be adapted to a wheelchair user. i would question the exclusion of a NIHL sufferer from a noisy environment though. Providing you ascertain the extent of hearing loss to protect your employer from future civil actions for NIHL, the person should still be able to undertake the role in many cases. What must not happen is the HR dept using a PEMQ as a selection for interview tool to filter out persons with disabilities / medical problems. It should only be considered once an offer of employment is made, based on that persons qualifications and experience for the role.

Thanks to responders. Any others?

The statement Current noise from HR people seems to indicate that we are now restricted in the info we can ask for, to almost none. is misleading. Assessment permits an employer to gather data about fitness for tasks, which can be done directly or indirectly. Besides relevance to job tasks, ensuring standardisation across all candidates is required Direct data gathering can be done by simulation, for example, asking candidates whose work requires them to lift awkload loads (including live people or animals), to demonstrate how to go about it. As long as the load and conditions are the same for all candidates, that's ok. Indirect data gathering can be done through psychomerically validated questionnaires that are designed to screen for vulnerability e.g. musculo-skeletal vulnerability of people in office, nursing and manual work; a firm in Leeds have produced an excellent questionnaire of this kind (details available if you contact me offline).