If it’s the first time you’ve been referred to occupational health it’s natural to have some questions about what to expect. The consent form or process that you’re asked to complete will answer many of these questions for you, but you may also be interested to find out a little more.

The next few sections will hopefully answer some of your questions and give you a bit more information on what to expect from an occupational health assessment with Smart Clinic.

 

What’s the purpose of an occupational health assessment?

An occupational health assessment is an assessment of your health in relation to your job. It will provide your employer with relevant information about your health, functional abilities and any advice or suggestions about how they can support you at work.

Every occupational health referral is different, and if you have any questions about why your employer has referred you to occupational health then you would be best to ask them about this directly. It may help to put your mind at ease and ensure you’re fully comfortable before proceeding with an assessment.

Typically, the assessment and subsequent report will address factors such as fitness for work, any adjustments you may require, any support that may help, and responses to any questions that your employer may raise. Sometimes employers will ask about things like the Equality Act (2010), fitness to attend meetings, underlying health concerns or any future treatments or investigations.

 

What happens before the occupational health assessment?

Prior to undergoing an occupational health assessment, you will need to provide your consent to go ahead with this. This may be online, or via a paper form.

This ensures that you’re fully aware of the process, and will cover areas like confidentiality, what to expect and next steps.

You will also be asked to book an appointment with your occupational health provider, at which point you will be matched with a suitable clinical member of staff, typically an occupational health nurse, physiotherapist or physician (doctor).

The clinician will read all the referral information that has been sent to them, to ensure they fully understand the reason for referral and what is expected of them. If they have any questions for the employer, they may also ask them directly.

This may include other medical information or reports that your employer have that could help occupational health to conduct a comprehensive assessment.

The clinician will also review your job role to ensure they have a reasonable understanding of what your organisation does, and more specifically what you do. This will include any risks or hazards within your job role, and any areas that may be physically or psychologically demanding.

They’ll prepare for the assessment by deciding what they need to ask you in relation to your health and your work to ensure they fully understand the situation, and enable them to provide clinical advice to you and your employer.

 

What questions are asked during an occupational health assessment?

We understand you may feel a little anxious about your occupational health assessment, and pre-empting what might be discussed during the assessment beforehand can be helpful.

This will vary according to the reason for referral, and the situation, but some of the typical topics that the clinician will discuss with you are:

• Your job role. They’ll want to know a little about your wider organisation, as well as your role specifically.
• Hazards. They may discuss some of the hazards within the role, to understand if there are any safety critical tasks, or areas of particular risk.
• Working hours. They will probably want to know how long you’ve been doing your current role, and what your typical working hours are.
• Absences. It’s common to ask about your absence history, both in this job role and previous job roles.
• Health history. You will be asked to discuss your health history. This may be previous and seemingly irrelevant health conditions, but your clinician may ask about these anyway to understand where any health history could pose a risk, or there could be an inter-relationship between health conditions.
• Social context. It’s important to understand social context, as this can determine what support is available to you. For instance do you live alone or with others? Do you have any dependents? Do you drive? Do you have a second job?
• Current health situation. You will be asked about your current health status. This may include other peripheral questions such as whether you smoke, take recreational drugs or drink alcohol, or may including asking about your sleep or dietary habits for example. It will certainly include the health condition that your employer has referred you for. This may be something you’ve discussed with your employer, or could be described on your most recent fit note.
• Medication. You will be asked about any regular medication you take, as well as anything you’re currently taking temporarily due to your current health condition.
• Symptoms. You will be asked all about what symptoms you’re experiencing. This may include physical and psychological symptoms, pain levels, and any impact this could be having on your day-to-day functioning.
• Management of symptoms. As well as medication, you may be asked about anything else you do to manage your symptoms, such as exercise, therapy or pain reduction techniques.
• Day-to-day activities. You may be asked about some of your routine activities and how well you’re managing with these. For instance are you managing with washing and clothing yourself? Can you prepare and eat food? Are you able to leave the house?
• Support. Your view on any support you may feel you need that you aren’t currently getting.
• The clinician’s view. The clinician will also discuss their view on some of the above, including whether there’s any support that they would recommend and what advice their report is likely to contain.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but helps to provide an indication of the types of things you may be asked to discuss during your occupational health assessment.

How long will it be?

There’s no fixed time on how long an appointment will take, as it can vary depending on your health condition(s), background, and how chatty you are! However we would typically suggest you allow up to an hour just to be on the safe side.

What happens after my occupational health assessment?

Once you’ve had your occupational health assessment, the clinician will go and review their clinical notes from your appointment, and use them to write a report for your employer.

This can take anywhere from 2 hours to 5 days. The average waiting time for this is about 1-2 working days.

You will be sent a copy of the report and asked to confirm if it is factually correct, and if you consent to release this to your employer. If there are errors on the report, you can ask for these to be corrected, but no advice or opinions would be changed.

Your report will not be sent to your employer without your permission, so please ensure that you are prompt with this part, and keep your employer informed if there is going to be any delay.

What about if I don’t agree with the report?

If there are parts of the report that you don’t agree with, we’d always encourage you to let your employer know about this so that they’re aware of your point of view. This may not be something that the clinician can change in the report, but it may be something that your employer takes into consideration.

If you would like to refuse to release the occupational health report as a result, this may also be an option, but again you should discuss this with your employer so that you’re aware of any next steps if don’t release the report.

Any factual inaccuracies within the report would always be changed, for instance any spelling mistakes, or wrongly listed information. At Smart Clinic we do our best to be accurate, but there is a lot of information to take in sometimes so we’re always very happy to correct something that we have noted wrongly.