Pregnancy and maternity under health & safety regulations Summary Even without any employee being pregnant, an employer must perform a risk assessment if there are staff of child-bearing age and the...
Health care provider fined for OH failures A Bedford based health care provider has been fined after it failed to act on concerns raised by an occupational health nurse. The case conc...
Testing to protect others, including drugs and alcohol Summary The Data Protection Act applies. Generally testing should be minimised and used only so far as justified. Health and safety reasons ...
Where is consent not needed? Summary To set the context, OH practitioners are subject to a common law duty of confidence. Breach of this can give rise to a civil action ...
Fixed retirement ages for health and safety, and maximum recruitment ages Summary Compulsory retirement age Normally a compulsory retirement age is unlawful as direct age discrimination unless it can be justified b...
Whistleblowing protection Summary Whistleblowing legislation protects workers against dismissal or other detriment if they make ‘protected disclosures’. This can incl...
Sick pay, pay protection, and Equality Act 2010 Summary The courts have generally held that an employer does not have an obligation to pay extra sick pay under disability discrimination le...
Indirect discrimination Indirect discrimination extends protection beyond the ‘formal’ equality of treatment tackled by direct discrimination. It can apply where an...
Race and religion or belief Summary Race and religion have been combined on this page because they tend to be less important in an occupational health (OH) setting than...
Maximum recruitment age for police: EU case The EU Court of Justice (ECJ) has upheld a maximum recruitment age of 35 for the Basque police. There was evidence that an officer aged 55 o...
