There are a number of situations in which an employer may consider obtaining a medical report on an employee, for example where the employee's capability is at issue and this could be for health reasons, or in relation to the duty to make reasonable adjustments.
The employer should consider from whom it should obtain the report. This will depend on factors such as the level of specialist knowledge required.
The employer should be aware of its legal duties, including under the Access to Medical Reports Act 1988 and the data protection rules under the General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679 EU) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
To help ensure that the report contains only relevant and useful information, the employer should give careful consideration to the information that it provides to the practitioner and the questions that it asks.
