Work wanting access to medical records, can't sleep...

[SociableAutist]

I'm currently signed off work due to autistic burnout. I'm trying my best to recover and get back to normal but am so stressed and worried by work that it's impeding my recovery.

Work now want access to my medical records. Thing is, this will be no use to them whatsoever. I was diagnosed with autism as an adult a few years ago, and there's nothing on my notes about it apart from the referral and diagnosis. There are, however, some deeply personal and private things in my record that I don't want my employer having access to.
What makes this worse is that I work for an individual, so it's not a separate HR department or anything.

My usual GP is on maternity leave. The others at the surgery don't know me, and there are no services or support for adult autism. There's no useful evidence or information in my medical records about this.

Things are so difficult and stressful in my life atm. I'm struggling to go on at all, and this is making it worse. I'm so upset that they won't let me recover and are just making things worse.

Can I refuse permission to access my records? Is this too much for them to ask?

Speak to Acas.

I assume it's because you work for a small employer who has had to pay out 6 weeks of SSP plus is presumably paying someone else to cover your role and they are probably trying to ascertain how long you will be off for. Their wording may be clumsy as presumably there is no HR department to deal with this.

Nevermind. You answered my question in literally the first sentence of your OP 🤣

Including this one! Nobody, absolutely nobody, gets "full access to your medical records", but it is very unwise to simply refuse. Employers can't just write to your employer and get your records, and even if they get permission they don't get your full medical records - they get a report which is based on the questions they ask.

What you need to do it ask what they want to know and how the information will be used. Give permission BUT speak to your doctor first, tell them what the purpose of the report is, and that you want to see and agree it before it is sent - this is your legal right.

If you refuse permission then that can impact on any possible disability claim - your employer can say that they couldn't confirm you have a disability or make reasonable adjustments because you failed to co-operate.

I understand why this sounds scary, but it is not uncommon, especially where a disability is concerned. But don't assume the worst. I don't know why your employer is asking or what they are like, but in most cases this is actually good practice and something done to support you - not something bad.

I work in HR. They won't be able to access your medical records. All they will get it is a letter from your GP answering specific questions, e.g. do you have a medical condition, how does this affect your day to day life, are you undergoing any treatment, how is this likely to impact your attendance in the future.

You have the right to see a copy of the report before it's sent to your employer.

GP reports are generally a waste of time as they provide very little useful information on occupational fitness, and tend to be a check box exercise.

Hello OP

I’m sorry that you’re having a hard time at the moment.

I’ve worked in HR and, specifically absence management and reasonable adjustments for a very long time. Firstly, your employer cannot arbitrarily write to your GP to obtain your medical records. Your GP surgery would need to see written consent from you in order to release anything, and your employer should make clear to you what they would like / are hoping to achieve by obtaining information from your GP.

They would be within their rights request Further Medical Evidence (FME) with the view to understanding what barriers to work your current state of health is presenting, the likely prognosis, and whether there is anything that they can do (in terms of adjustments) to support you to return to work. The GP would then, with your consent, respond accordingly.

Or, if your employer were to involve an Occupational Health practitioner, they too could write to your GP with specific questions that they need answers on in order to write their report. Again though, none of this could be done without your written consent.

It wouldn’t be in your interest not to cooperate with your employer. That is not to say that you are obligated to share information that you are not comfortable or happy sharing, but you need to be doing all that you can to work with them to explore how a return to work (even if that isn’t presently achievable) might look.

If you haven’t already, I would attend a meeting with them to find out what they are wanting to achieve from speaking with your GP, and whether there is anything more that you can provide directly instead. As I’m sure you’re aware, and they ought to be too, GPs are stretched to their limits and so responses to such requests don’t come about quickly. OH services would allow up to 20 working days before they would even chase for a reply. So I would say it’s in both yours and your employer’s interests to try and resolve this without GP input.

If in doubt, give ACAS a call. It also could be worthwhile contacting a union if you’re not already part of one. Some would tell you that it’s too late for their input but this is rarely the case.

My last point is that, as someone upthread already said, as a very small employer they are less beholden to the expectation to make reasonable adjustments than much larger organisations would be. They would need to fulfil their legal obligations as per the Equality Act (under which you would absolutely be covered for ASD) but small companies with only one or two employees are much more constrained in terms of what adjustments they could realistically, and reasonably make, and so if your absence extends with no expected return date in sight, the potential for dismissal isn’t as fraught with legal complication as some on here would have you believe. Your employer, after all, is allowed to prioritise the profitability of the business if your absence is likely to jeopardise that. I don’t say this to frighten you, just to arm you with the facts.

I wish you well. Take good care x

You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) hand over your medical record to your employer. The reason GP reports are “useless” is that a) it’s not NHS work so GPs don’t tend to spend much time on them b) GPs are not usually occupational health physicians which is a specialty in it’s own right, especially for complex issues
like autism- the way a person’s autism will affect their ability to work will be highly specific to the individual and to the job they do and needs a proper assessment in that context. Unless your employer is an Occupational Health Physician themselves then they aren’t qualified or able to make that assessment, regardless of whether they have access to your medical record. And even if they were, it would still be right to get an independent assessment.

As PPs have said, you need a formal occupational health assessment. Only huge companies have their own occ health departments so by far the most common way of this happening is for the company to employ the services of a third party occupational health service to provide an assessment. This is the right and normal way to do things and your employer should know this. They will have to pay for it but their solution of just asking to see your medical record is a completely unacceptable employment practice.

Occupational Health is not a department in a company, it’s a service provided by external intermediaries. I work for a large organisation but OH is provided by a separate company. It was very useful in translating my medical needs into a report containing recommendations and reasonable adjustments. Not everything that I disclosed and discussed with the OH made it into the report, only the relevant points. And I was able to see the report before it was provided to my employer.

I’m not sure how much the service costs but you could suggest that your employer looks into it.

I would absolutely not agree to my employer seeing my medical records. I’m shocked they even asked! They are entitled to a fit note, not your life history. If they want to support you they can pay for an occupational health appointment.

...so you work for an individual....mit sounds like a really horrible power move, no employer has a right to request medical records.
They can ask for a gp report for a back to work assessment but no, their request is just not done.

Can I ask what kind of work you do?

You can refuse permission, yes.

Or, you can ask them to refer you to a medical practitioner of their choice who you will talk to.

Or, they can write to your GP and ask only a out your autism.

HR here..
your employer should write a letter to your GP asking specific questions, it won’t be a full release of your records. Questions are usually around how your employer can provide you with support, about your condition and adjustments they should consider to support you in the workplace.

you can see your GP’s response before it is issued to your employer and Redact anything you don’t want in there.

xx

All employers have the right to request medical records, some even make it a contractual term so there is no confusion.

Employees obviously have the right to refuse. And in some cases this refusal will be a breach of contract.

Employers must make decisions based on the information they have available to them.

I imagine you are in burnout as your job wasn’t adjusted properly to meet your needs.

This is a Hand S issue and a discrimination issue. When you feel better l’d be fighting back on these grounds.

This may have already been posted, but ACAS will tell you what you need to know:

https://www.acas.org.uk/getting-a-doctors-report-about-an-employees-health

Try not to assume the worst; it's to be expected that your employer wants to organise a way forward, and while the bit about seeing your medical records may have been put clumsily nobody's going to give them the entire thing

That may be true. And if you refuse to provide the employer with the medical reports to support adjustments then it is neither a H&S issue nor a discrimination issue - it is a "brought it on yourself" issue.

We are talking about a tiny employer here, not a huge organisation with loads of resources. They may (or may not) have used some terms incorrectly, but asking for a medical report from someone's practitioner to support medical determinations and/or adjustments is perfectly proper. And they are not obliged to have independant occupational health for this either; that may be a good idea, it may be good practice, but it isn't required practice.

If the OP refuses to co-operate then there may be nothing to fight back on when they feel better - they may not have a job, and they certainly won't be able to show that they did their part in identifying the causes of burnout and the helping their employer to meet their needs (if that is possible and if it is the problem).

People are happily criticising the employer and making asusmptions not necessarily based on facts, but whilst so many here are (in some cases incorrectly) saying that the employer can't do this or shouldn't do this, and listing what their expectations of the employer are, they are forgetting to point out something else .... the law also requires employees to reasonably co-operate in protecting their own health and safety at work, and providing their employer with the information to do so. It's a two way street.

It's not the job that is making me sick. I was doing it fine before. It's just a few things in my life that have come together and made me overwhelmed over an extended period.

I don't think I'd be capable of doing ANY job at present, unless it was something from home and total flexibility with hours. This has been the best suited to me job I've ever had, I was on sickness benefits not working for a long time beforehand. I CAN'T go back to that now because of other aspects of my situation.

I just want to be left alone to recover so I can go back, not kept awake at night worrying about the latest email.

It isn't the job that has made me burn out. Or at least, the job is just one of the demands on me in life, and altogether everything became too much. There's definitely other things that contributed, without which I'd be fine. I did try to address these things but they are not medical they are personal.

What's difficult here is that whilst I do have autism, this didn't stop me doing my job. Autistic burnout is different though - it's more of a temporary state that needs to be recovered from. And all the advice is NOT to push yourself, to let yourself recover. As a PP said, every contact with work pushes back recovery as it's so stressful. So "reasonable adjustments" beyond a phased return (which I've already suggested) don't really exist. It's like if someone broke their leg so couldn't do their job that requires them to be on their feet all day. You just have to wait for it to heal. It's so frustrating because I wish I could just snap out of it and I'm trying my best to do the things to help me get better. But these are not medical things (unless eating healthily and exercising count, which are both helpful to me and a real push to do atm). My employer is keen on reasonable adjustments so would do everything right in this vein, but ultimately the problem is being expected to do something to a timetable which I can't manage atm.

I'm worried that any medical report will be of little use, as the person writing it will have even less of a clue than I do!

To PPs mentioning employing cover - an old employee has returned temporarily so is basically covering for me. The ins and outs of this basically mean it's a pretty perfect arrangement for now.

But your employer is still paying SSP to you whilst paying the temporary covers wages too so may not be the perfect arrangement for them.

Do you have an idea of the timescale you need to recover, I'm not 100% but I think you need to have regular meetings with employers whilst claiming SSP as they may need to put things into place if you need a gradual return to work.

Good news - I've re-read the forms I was sent, and despite asking for my medical records, the forms are as PPs have said, and asking for a report, with option to see the report first.

I am a bit concerned about the part that says they can withhold parts of the report if they think it's not in your interests to see it. Unfortunately I had a long on-and-off and fraught relationship with psychiatry over many years of trying to get help for mental health before twigging I had autism and working things out from there. So there are already things in my notes I'm not allowed to see, and unfortunately an old and incorrect diagnosis on file. It's got a note added that I want it discounted as I believe it's not appropriate in light of ASD diagnosis, but I can't actually get it removed without going to see an NHS psychiatrist, which I can't do because I don't meet their criteria to see one as I'm not mentally ill. 🙄 Anyway, I'm worried this will be added or other things I don't know about and won't be allowed to know about.

But I am also concerned that what my employer wants to know will not be covered by the report. A GP will only know what I tell them and what they can Google!

You are overthinking all of this. If it can't provide what the employer wants then that really isn't your problem. And it isn't about whether work or something else is responsible - what is happening right now is that something is affecting you to the extent that it impacts on your employer. A good employer would care about that. If my staff are having a bad time at home and can't cope, within reason I don't tell them that I don't care - I do care, and there may be things that I need to consider work wise, or absence management wise. As a manager or an employer, we are not employees best friends, and we can't always fix stuff. We have to act in a balanced way for the interests of the service we provide. But that doesn't mean we are heartless monsters either or that we don't care that our staff are having a hard time. You can't compartmentalise work and personal life.

Within reason, just do what is asked. Check what your doctor says and ensure you are happy with what they disclose. Then concentrate on getting better which is what you both want. You want to be better. Your employer probably wants you to be better too. But they also want you back at work, because that is what they need. That's the balance I was talking about - they need you to be better as a person, but as an employer they have needs too.

Maybe I am overthinking it. It kind of comes with the territory of autism so it's hard to tell. I'm just trying to understand what they're actually asking me and why. I've already been asked some questions which seem entirely inappropriate for the situation (eg. am I on any medication).
I'm not sure how I can prove I'm doing what I can to recover, when there isn't a medical pathway for this.

I would think they want a realistic timeframe of when you may return to work and how to find the best way to support you in your return and what adjustments/changes need to be made.

They won't get your full records, what they will get is a summary of your condition which has caused you to go on sick leave. Employers have the right to get information to confirm why an employee is off work and to be able to put in measures to get them back to work.

Have you checked your employment contract too. Mine clearly states my full pay, ssp and after how many months they can seek to replace me (6 months in my case)