Medical checks before you are offered a job

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Health and Disability Checks

Section 60 of the Equality Act 2010 (EqA 2010) prohibits Employers from asking about the health or disability of an applicant before making a job offer. The prohibition applies to asking such questions on the application form, during the application process or during the job interview. Questions about previous sickness absence are questions that relate to disability or health and are also prohibited. Employers can make job offers conditional on satisfactory health checks. So, Employers can ask questions related to health and ask for medical reports once a job has been offered. This means that Employers should not ask applicants to complete medical questionnaires at an early stage of the recruitment process – and should certainly not be asking OH professionals to get involved in assessing an Employee’s health or fitness until a job offer has been made, other than where a specific exception applies.

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When Can an Employer Ask Questions About Health?

This means that an Employer cannot refer you for health checks before they make a job offer, except in the following circumstances;

• Where the Employer has to make reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process – section 60(6)(a) EqA 2010
• Monitoring diversity – section 60(6)(c) EqA 2010
• Implementing positive action measures such as the guaranteed interview scheme for disabled applicants – section 60(6)(d) EqA 2010
• Occupational requirements such as where the job requires a person with a particular impairment – section 60(6)(e) EqA 2010
• Where there is a requirement to vet applicants for national security – section 60(14) EqA 2010
• Where the question is about an applicant’s ability to carry out a function that is intrinsic to that job – section 60(6)(b) EqA 2010

If you are being discriminated against as a job applicant use the ET1 Builder to write your Employment Tribunal Claim.