Occ Health referral

Refusing an occupational health assessment has worked against people in court in the past. https://www.thompsonstradeunion.law/news/lelr/weekly-issue-802/boundaries-of-behaviour some employers have said that ‘we couldn’t gauge the risk because they refused the occupational health assessment. So we had to sack them.’

Yeah - I'm not going to refuse. I am just having issues with them specifying WHY they are referring me.

All I have had so far is there are "concerns" but won't identify what exactly those concerns are. I am entitleed to know exactly why I am being referred, and union rep has stepped in to try and sort the situation out.

I fought for six months to get an OH referral after Autism diagnosis and had referrals in the past as have always declared previously diagnosed depression/anxiety disabilities on application forms.

In my previous career it was relatively standard to refer to OH on employment to ensure all was OK to work. I always sailed through as when given support I have pretty much zero issues with work. It only falls apart when support is not given, as is the case now.

I feel like I have been saying along the lines of: "You promised safety equipment as I identified a risk of breaking a leg - health and safety agreed - you didn't provide the safety equipment - I broke my leg - now you are blaming me for breaking my leg."

I think if you emphasise at the occupational health meeting that the only reason the accident happened is because the reasonable adjustments weren’t in place there’s a very good chance the occupational health team will write a report that basically says no put to be reasonable adjustments in place and did we stutter.

if that happens and your boss is looking for an excuse to sack you it’s going to leave him in an untenable position. if he says the reasonable adjustments are too onerous well how can he explain that if they’re basically the same as before.

it’s only if occupational health turns around and recommend some new additional reasonable adjustments in order to handle the situation that caused the accident ‘that he might try and turn around and say oh no this is impossible we couldn’t possibly be expected to go that far.’ That’s probably what your boss is hoping for. Some new expectation placed upon him that he can use as an excuse to take issue with to try and sack you.

if he doesn’t get that and he’s still sacks you when the reasonable adjustments haven’t really changed. Well I think you’ll agree it looks quite odd given that he didn’t take issue with the first occupational health report.

Good luck then I guess :)

Their concern is more about trying to get rid of me than anything else. I put in a previous grievance about abusive and discriminatory language used about me which found in my favour (but had to appeal to get this as my boss did the initial grievance investigation and oddly found nothing / ignored evidence in writing).

A discrimination grievance following this more recent incident, about not providng reasonable adjustments, has also now found in my favour, making my boss look incompetent.

I'm pretty sure OH will hand his butt to him and say it was as a result of the lack of provision of reasonable adjustments. Union agrees. GP agrees.

Got all of this done and have forwarded all company emails to my private email.

There seems to be a huge delay in reporting back on the grievance meeting...over a week now...as I expect they are scratching their heads trying not to admit not providing reasonable adjustments (which is disability discrimination) despite NOT having provided the reasonable adjustments.

Thanks again for your input Iain.

OAP - Older Autistic Person said:

ad to make yet another complaint.

I suspect you have already done this, but it won't hurt to have a reminder.

Make the complaint SMART

Specific - detail the issue triggering the anxiety on that day and link it to your adjustments request clearly.

Measurable - detail what the adjustment request said and prove it was not applied.

Achievable - explain specifically what steps could have been taken and were not (by the management for your adjustments)

Realistic - detail why the adjustment requests could have been put in place without significant cost or disruption

Time constrained - detail when the adjustment request was approved by management and detail with proof (eg emails) when you followed up to ask for them to be done.

It is a lot of work to do this but it builds a cast iron case. The chasing management is a bit of a pain too but is very useful to have a paper trail proving you have repeatedly stated the need for these, just in case the manager in question pleaded that they were too busy and it as "in the pipeline" anyway.

Good luck, and remember to keep copies of any emails outside the companys mail server just in case they cut your access off.

Oh so I take it the accident in question involves you driving a piece of equipment like a forklift? Well I understand why they might be concerned.

but again provided occupational health is persuaded the accident was a result of a lack of reasonable adjustments have already been recommended I don’t think you have anything to worry about.

your boss can hardly stand up and say, ‘oh well we didn’t mind about the reasonable adjustments before because we thought if we didn’t do them the only person affected would be him. Now that we think he might run someone over if we don’t do the reasonable adjustments we care and are not prepared to commit to consistently applying the adjustments.’

Oh so I take it the accident in question involves you driving a piece of equipment like a forklift? Well I understand why they might be concerned.

but again provided occupational health is persuaded the accident was a result of a lack of reasonable adjustments have already been recommended I don’t think you have anything to worry about.

your boss can hardly stand up and say, ‘oh well we didn’t mind about the reasonable adjustments before because we thought if we didn’t do them the only person affected would be him. Now that we think he might run someone over if we don’t do the reasonable adjustments we care and are not prepared to commit to consistently applying the adjustments.’

Good luck then I guess :)

Their concern is more about trying to get rid of me than anything else. I put in a previous grievance about abusive and discriminatory language used about me which found in my favour (but had to appeal to get this as my boss did the initial grievance investigation and oddly found nothing / ignored evidence in writing).

A discrimination grievance following this more recent incident, about not providng reasonable adjustments, has also now found in my favour, making my boss look incompetent.

I'm pretty sure OH will hand his butt to him and say it was as a result of the lack of provision of reasonable adjustments. Union agrees. GP agrees.