Occupational Health Legislation

Occupational health: the real risks

Under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, you have a duty, as far as is reasonably practicable to protect employees’ health and safety at work. This requirement is further supported by the COSHH Regulations, Manual Handling Regulations, First Aid at Work Regulations, DSE Regulations, etc.

Employees are further protected by the following legislation:
 

Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995
Disabled employees are protected by the DDA. This requires you to make reasonable adjustments to disabled employees’ working arrangements, and to ensure they are not treated less favourably than other employees. Employees whose injury or poor health persists may be eligible for DDA protection.

Occupational Health Legislation
If you consider disciplining or dismissing employees for ill health reasons, you should consider:

• Employment Rights Act 1996, ‘...to adopt fair procedures before dismissing employees on grounds of sickness absence’
• Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Regulations) 2004, ‘...to adopt statutory minimum dismissal, disciplinary and grievance procedures.’

Data Protection Act 1998
The sickness absence data you keep and process has to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998. If an absence record contains specific medical information relating to an employee, this is deemed sensitive data and you will have to satisfy the statutory conditions for processing such data.

Occupational health provides employers with relevant professional advice on navigating the complexity posed by both statutory legislation and case law.