Originally Posted by: sarah.blakeway@outlook.com

We have agency staff who sign off with their agency if they have any health conditions, but we don't currently undertake full hearing / HAVS screening before they start with us as we do with our regular employees. At what point do other organisations ask agency staff to complete the full screening process- 12 week point? Also how do people retain the information from when the staff are agency workers compared to full staff? Obviously if we start screening agency staff it will result in a significant delay which circumnavigates the purpose of having agency staff! All thoughts appreciated - Thanks 

I don't fully understand your question, do they have health conditions or do they not?

I would suggest in my opinion to treat your agency staff equally with your normal employees.

Sarah,

This is addressed in Regulation 15 of the Managment Regs - to some degree. 

However, Reg 15 is concerned about the provision of information which includes the need to inform 'employees' of the need for Health Surveillance. It does not include any requirements relating to who should provided the Health Surveillance, either their employer (Agency) or the worplace employer (Company).

What the company must do is ensure the same standards are applied to the temporary workers as to their own staff. If your staff doing the same job need pre-work or on-going Health Surveillance then so do temporary workers. Who undertakes the Health Surveillance is a matter of agreement with Agency. But ulimately its the Agency that carries the 'default' duty to ensure it is provided once they have been informed of the need for it. You may have some liability under Section 3 if you allow people to work you who have not had the required Health Surveillance.

Hope it helps.

I don't see any value in expecting the agency to provide health surveillance.  For one thing they are not familiar with the working conditions that are making the surveillance necessary and have no power to improve them.  For another, even if they agreed to do it, they would just charge it back to the client and no doubt take a cut for it.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/faqs.htm

I run an employment agency. What are my health surveillance responsibilities?

If the agency workers you supply are your employees, you are responsible for any health surveillance needed. Before placing a worker with a user business, you need to check whether they will be doing work that requires health surveillance. If health surveillance is needed, you might be able to arrange for the user business to do health surveillance on your behalf – but you are still responsible for making sure that any necessary health surveillance is done and for keeping health records if the workers are your employees.

The user business is not legally required to do health surveillance for workers who are not its employees, and if you can't get the user business's agreement to do so, you will need to organise any necessary health surveillance yourself. Following the guidance on this site will help you do this.