If you suspect an employee’s performance is suffering due to health, or the health and safety of colleagues is affected by their health, our Management Referrals process allows you to adequately resolve these issues.
When to Use This Service
There are several occasions when your organisation could benefit from referring an employee to us for a medical opinion, including:
All absence cases, particularly mental health (stress, anxiety, depression) or musculoskeletal cases.
An employee has frequent incidences of short-term absence with one or more reported illnesses.
An employee has had an accident at work and an accurate clinical record of their injuries is required, including RIDDOR incidents.
HR needs assistance in understanding how they can support someone in work who is struggling.
An employee has been, or is likely to be, off sick for longer than four weeks or where there is no foreseeable return-to-work date.
A manager believes that an employee’s health is being affected adversely by their work (e.g. stress, upper limb disorders or back pain).
An employee is about to be transferred to another job or be promoted and a medical assessment is required.
An employee’s performance at work may be compromised because of ill health.
An employee is diagnosed with a critical illness such as psychiatric ill health, cancer or heart disease.
An employee is thought to be suffering from alcohol, drug or substance misuse.
An employee has notified you that they are concerned about their own ill health, particularly if they believe their health is being affected by work.
Advice is required on rehabilitation programmes for sick or disabled employees.
You require a report regarding an employee’s fitness to attend a disciplinary or grievance hearing.
A referral is required in line with your absence management policy.
At Wellness International Ltd., the focus on all management referrals is to ensure that the employee is given the right advice and support, whilst giving the appropriate guidance to the employer.
It must be a balanced approach taking all factors into consideration.
The Process
We use an Occupational Health system that allows HR managers to complete and submit their referrals and ultimately receive their reports online, providing management information in real-time to HR. Management Referrals must be made with the full knowledge of the employee concerned, meaning they must know why they are being referred and what is involved. This is gained via informed consent.
A referral form is completed detailing the full history of the problem and any relevant previous episodes of sickness absence. This also details the objective of the referral and any work-specific questions that the employer may want answered.
Once the referral form is received, the case is triaged, and an appropriate appointment is made with either an Occupational Health nurse or doctor. The administration team ensures that there is always open and transparent communication with the employee and HR throughout the process.
Once the Occupational Health report is completed and recommendations are made, if required, Wellness International Ltd. can provide a wrap-around approach for the employee’s mental and physical health. Through our network of Occupational Health physiotherapists, Cognitive Behaviour therapists and psychologists, we can provide these support services if management require.