Читать книгу Occupational Health Law - Diana Kloss - Страница 43

Occupational health professionals should be clear about whether they are classified as employees, workers or self employed contractors, as that has important legal consequences.

An occupational health professional can be convicted of a crime under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, in addition to the employer, or may be solely responsible, if a failure of reasonable care leads to employees and others being put at risk.

The Court of Appeal has held that an occupational health professional does not owe a duty of care to a worker pre‐employment, but it is likely that this applies only to economic loss and not to physical harm. A duty of care extending to both physical and economic harm is owed to workers in employment.

Occupational health professionals always owe a legal and ethical duty of confidence to those who confide in them.

Although an occupational health professional cannot dictate to management how they should protect the workforce, they can and should give advice and warn of hazards to health and safety and may be liable if they negligently fail to do so.

The duty to obtain informed consent to medical procedures requires that the patient should be given the information that a reasonable person in that particular patient’s circumstances would want to know.

An occupational health professional can be held liable for a breach of the Equality Act if a disabled person is refused a job because of a negative assessment during which reasonable adjustments were not adequately considered.

Health care workers infected with HIV or Hepatitis B, but with a low viral load, may be permitted to perform exposure prone procedures but must be under the regular supervision of a consultant occupational physician and must agree to their names being included in a confidential register.