Health checks and questionnaires

You may wish to include health checks as part of your recruitment process. A health questionnaire may ask about individual and family history and lifestyle. They can highlight potential problems requiring a follow up – e.g. by a medical examination.

Questions about disability and health during the recruitment process

Before offering a job to anyone, you should only ask about a candidate's disability or health if you need to find out whether:

• they will be able to attend an interview or do some form of selection test
• you will need to make a reasonable adjustment to enable them to attend an interview or do the test
• they will be able to do something that is intrinsic for the job in question

You can also ask about a candidate's health if:

• you want to monitor the diversity of your applicants
• you want to take positive action to enable you to recruit more disabled workers
• the job in question is one for which having a disability is an occupational requirement

Asking a question about disability is not in itself discriminatory. However, your conduct following the candidate's response could lead an employment tribunal to conclude that you have carried out a discriminatory act.

When to carry out pre-employment health checks

You should only complete pre-employment health checks:

• once you have offered the job to a particular person
• where any candidate - disabled or not - would be required to undergo testing to decide if they are fit to carry out the job
• where testing is needed to meet any legal requirement – e.g. eye tests for commercial vehicle drivers
• when you are sure you need this information and have policies in place to securely hold the information as required by the Data Protection Act 1998, regardless of whether it is in paper or electronic form

The level of assessment will depend on the nature of the job, and can range from simply checking the levels of absence in a previous job to a full health assessment.

If you are making a job offer conditional upon the candidate's fitness for the work, this should be stated clearly in the offer letter.

You must ensure you are not carrying out discriminatory practices in asking potential employees to pass a health check. Health checks - if required - should be carried out on all candidates to avoid unfairly discriminating against disabled candidates.

You may be required to pay a fee for a medical report on a candidate. The candidate must give you their written consent before you request a medical report.

Candidates have the right to see the report and can request that it is amended or withheld from you. Even without the applicant seeing the report, the doctor must keep it for 21 days before sending it to the employer.