We would like to start using medical/health screening questionnaires for school staff when they are offered a new position. I've not been able to find a template for one of these anywhere, I wondered if anyone would be willing to share one with me please?
This is generally something that you should be using occupational health for as otherwise you would be collecting and assessing medical data when (presumably) you aren't medically trained. New starters need to be assessed against 'fitness to teach' guidelines and the service is generally called pre-placement screening. Let me know if you need assistance.
Harry
In our school we ask all new starters to complete a Declaration of Medical Fitness - basically:
"I know of no reason on the grounds of mental and physical health, why I should not be able to discharge the responsibilities required for this post."
I confirm the above statement is true: YES/NO
Please provide any existing medical conditions that the school should be aware of:
Are you on any medication at present that could impact on your work? YES/NO
Medication details:
Please provide details of any food allergies, if applicable:
In the last five years, have you had any periods of sickness absence of more than 2 weeks? YES/NO
Sickness absence details:
Instead of completing the form, all new starters are given the option of speaking to the HR Director or Nurse.
Any answers that indicate any potential concern are referred for a full medical to our nurse team or external doctor, so that people with the right skills/knowledge are able to take screening decisions.
That's the sort of questionnaire that you need to be careful with as non clinicians are collecting clinical data and making clinical decisions. There's new ICO guidance published at the end of August 23 about processing information about workers' health which is quite an important read. One of their examples is about health questionnaires and says: "It is good practice for health professionals to design health questionnaires. This also means the questionnaires should be interpreted by those who are qualified to draw meaningful conclusions from the information supplied by the worker."
I agree, which is why we use our school nurse or our associated doctor if making any health decisions about staff (and only with their involvement). We allow the individual to self-define whether there is any reason why they can't do the job, and proceed on that basis. We are legally obliged to check on medical fitness for people working in schools, but the advice we've taken is that we can ask the person to declare if there's anything we need to know.
You're very lucky to have a school nurse in house, I know a lot of schools who'd be very envious of you :) As long as they are occupational health trained (or the supervising doctor is) and assess against the Fitness to Teach Guidelines, then they would be fine to do that. They would need to receive the questionnaires directly though, and they should be making the ultimate determination on an employee's fitness to work, not the member of staff themselves, so I would definitely suggest you amending that bit slightly.
We are lucky yes!
The guidance form our regulatory body (ISI) is that:
"Schools must verify a candidate's mental and physical fitness to carry out their work responsibilities. The KCSIE footnote to the provision cites a fitness to teach circular. ... A job applicant can be asked relevant questions about disability and health in order to establish whether they have the physical and mental capacity for the specific role. No particular methodology is prescribed. Common means are through asking prospective employees to declare their fitness for the role, or to complete a medical questionnaire. This could be followed up with a request for medical advice, with the consent of the applicant.
Where a self-declaration is used, the regulations do not set out a particular format for this. Such declarations should be duly signed by the applicant and should contain, as a minimum, a simple statement that the applicant knows of no reasons, on the grounds of mental or physical health, why they should not be able to discharge the responsibilities required by the post in question."
It's interesting to hear that they provide guidance that directly contradicts the DfE guidance on Fitness to Teach, and the ICO guidance on data protection law.
I'm keen to get clarity on your thinking on this. As far as I can tell the Fitness To Teach guidelines were for people entering initial teacher training, rather than for schools checking suitability for a person entering the school. I can't find them except in archive format. The guidance for this year's Initial Teacher Training criteria says:
Health and physical capacity to train to teach
Accredited ITT providers should have regard to the relevant aspects of Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) requirements when assessing trainees’ health and physical capacity to train to teach, so that children and young people are not at risk of harm. The activities that a teacher must be able to perform are set out in the Education (Health Standards) (England) Regulations 2003. Accredited ITT providers are responsible for ensuring that only trainees who have the capacity to teach remain on the programme. People with disabilities or chronic illnesses may have the capacity to train to teach, just as those without disabilities or medical conditions may be unsuitable to train to teach. Successful applicants may be asked to complete a fitness questionnaire prior to commencing the programme. Accredited ITT providers should not ask all-encompassing health questions but should ensure that they only ask targeted and relevant health-related questions which are necessary to ensure that a person is able to train to teach.
KCSIE simply refers to this guidance too, and says schools have to verify the candidate’s mental and physical fitness to carry out their work responsibilities.
Please will you share your thinking and also about how the person's data protection rights are being undermined by the approach followed in our school (and in almost all schools, in my view).
Of course - we only have them in PDF format, but if you drop me your contact details I'm happy to send them over. They date back to 1999 / 2000, so they're quite old, and elements of them really could do with updating, but it's the most recent guidance available on occupational health / fitness for work within the education, so we are obliged to refer back to them for all of our education based work (and we do a LOT).
In answer to your question though, they refer to all teachers throughout their career, and by extension also other staff within a school environment (TAs, exam invigilators etc).
In terms of data protection, there are two main considerations; a) the clinical competency of the decision maker and b) the handling of medical data by an employer. In terms of a) only a clinically trained individual can assess what health condition is relevant to their fitness to work or otherwise. With a self-declaration, the individual isn't trained to know what health conditions are and aren't relevant or what needs to be assessed under the relevant guidance and law, nor are they independent. For instance they may have a condition that they view as well controlled, but actually could pose a safeguarding risk if it was every poorly controlled in the future, and would require independent assessment by a clinician before starting in role. In terms of b) I don't know exactly how your school processes the information, but there are principles and lawful bases around the processing of medical data that need to be followed - you may well be doing this already, I'm not sure. But data needs to be minimised (i.e. not collected by you if you aren't doing anything with it, or you are collecting it 'just in case), not stored for longer than required, stored securely, and processing needs to be justified and the justifications need to be documented, including what decisions are made following on from the medical data...and by whom. The ICO recently published very helpful guidance on this, because there were a few grey areas before. As an employer you will likely need to handle medical data at some point, but this should be minimised and referred for medical advice wherever possible. The ICO actually site new starter questionnaires as an example which is very helpful and is what I included in one of the messages above. It's worth a read: ico.org.uk/.../
In essence though, medical data (such as questionnaires) should be shared with a clinical professional such as an occupational health nurse or doctor, who should then assess this and provide advice accordingly.
Hope that helps :)
