@Evamaisie we haven't adopted yet but are preparing for panel. Between DP and I we have a few health issues.
As part of the process you'll have a medical, where you'll have to go to your GP and go through everything. This will then get sent to a medical advisor for the adoption agency who will raise any issues. This is for everyone, whether or not you've had any health problems.
So for example I have a history of depression, and am overweight. So the medical advisor said in their opinion I was likely to have further episodes of depression in the future, and they also flagged up my BMI.
Through the discussions with my social worker we have gone through this is great detail. So I've talked about how the depression affected me, what I did, what treatment I had, how I learned to manage it. I would say be honest about this.
My partner has a mobility issue, so we've talked about how we'll manage that. Eg, can't have a child with significant physical needs, as DP wouldn't be able to look after them without me. We'll consider how we can put the little one down for naps downstairs, for when I'm not around during the day. Again, there has been extensive discussion about the history of DP's medical needs, what affect it has, what could potentially go wrong, how will we manage that.
I currently have long covid, after I contracted covid after we'd finished stage 1, so the medical had already happened. Similar to the above we've talked to our social worker about what I'm able to do, how I manage my long covid, what adjustments I'll need to make when the little one comes home.
They decided they wanted me to have another medical, which involved me filling out a massive form. I was pretty daunted by the form, but thankfully our SW helped me do it. So in this I've given them a lot of detail about most of my symptoms, an honest picture of how ill I was, what interventions I've had, what strategies I've developed.
My instinct when I was doing this form would have been to focus on how I am now (which is well on the way to recovery, able to do most things, but I won't be aiming to do extended periods of cardio any time soon), but it would have looked like I was hiding something, so giving the full history was much better.
This has delayed panel a couple of times, but obviously my situation is pretty specific. My depression and my DP's mobility issues because we have both been stable for years were quite straightforward. But I hope that sort of explains how the assessment has gone in terms of health issues. I would say think about how your health problems will impact you, and what steps you can take to help. But be honest with your social worker and they will help you explore all these things as well.