to NOT want to fill in this form...?

[lilwelshyrs]

DH has a new job (yay!). He's had his contract posted to him and a funny Occupational Health form with it. He's expected to take a medical examination anyway (which is totally fine) but this questionnaire seems incredibly personal.
Nowhere in the offer letter does it say this questionnaire is compulsory to employment.

The form has questions like:
Who in your family has suffered from: Diabetes, asthma, mental disease ( disease what a terrible use of the word!), hayfever, TB, cancer.
This includes me... I'm not blood related FGS...

It also asks the most weirdly worded question... (any spelling errors are intentional!)
Have you ever smoked as much as one cigarette a day (or one cigar a week or and ounce of Tobacco a month) for as long as a year?

I reckon it's to do with suing culture - if your family have ever suffered from mental illness and you have a break down due to work related stress, then you can't blame your workplace...? And if you've ever smoked one cigarette on a boozey night out and you're frequently exposed to carcinogenic materials and you get lung cancer, then you can't blame work... Right?
So I can kinda see where they're coming from... Kinda... But it seems a bit much. Especially when you undergo a medical anyway.

Can he just tell them he won't fill out the form? We both feel very uncomfortable that they want his full family history...

AWBU?

Nope, no access to any sensitive info (apologies, being cagey about actual job role as I don't want to out myself or my DH!).
But it doesn't ever require rescuing anyone, no ones life will ever be in his hands, he will never need to make any medical decisions, he won't have access to any files that are sensitive about anything ever...

I would have to say that I have no idea. I have no living blood relatives except my kids and one sister. I would not fill it out except to state that my parents are dead and I have no information on them.

Very odd form. I'd really be wary about filling it out.

I suffered from depression as a teenager... DH isn't going to suffer from depression BECAUSE I suffered/suffer from it! Lol, or diabetes... It is very strange.

Sounds like the type of form an insurance company would issue - is there any life insurance cover with the job?

I work in health care and any job offers I have had have been subject to occupational health clearance, so while I understand your wish not to out yourself, people may be giving the wrong advice for his particular field if they don't know what it is. I have in the past declined to answer certain questions on a form and been called in to see the occ health physician for interview - which was fine, I have no objection to giving relevant medical information to a health care professional, I just didn't see why HR staff needed certain information.
I agree that family history I would usually expect to mean blood relatives, and if you don't know, for whatever reason, then you don't know, it's OK to say that.
You say he'll have a medical - maybe this is to screen for who sees the nurse and who sees the occ health doctor ?

Nope, no insurance.

As I've said previously, his job isn't medical, life saving or anything related to personnel kind of stuff. It requires a fairly high level of concentration and long hours.
The medical is:
Eyesight test
Lung function test
Hearing test.

Are they trying to weed out people who may end up with future caring responsibilities? That's the only reason I can think of for wanting to know about partners health.

Maybe? Wouldn't that be discriminatory of an employer to not want to employ them on the ground they might become a carer?
So far, friends who are currently employed there haven't filled out this form, so it's obviously very very new!

Asking about spouse / partner medical history I agree sounds odd and may require clarification.

I am absolutely NOT asking you to say his job if you don't want to, however there are lots of jobs that may require medical history - anything involving driving for example. Just because you are allowed to drive a car doesn't mean you can have an HGV licence, be a taxi driver etc. Any physically demanding job, they are going to want to know about heart disease, diabetes. Anything with a funny shift pattern or nights may affect people's control for diabetes, epilepsy, mental health problems. And the list goes on.

It may be a completely inappropriate questionnaire or it may be a way of screening people who may need a longer more detailed medical.

I filled a form like this in to work for a big old fashioned British company.
I thought it was weird but felt like I had to do it!
I was going to be doing office work with some regular travel in the UK to talk at events. Typical stuff, no health insurance.

I don't like the sound of it at all. It isn't clear if it is being deliberately discriminatory, or over stepping the mark, if it is poorly worded and accidentally hoovering up more confidential information than it needs to, maybe it is being sent out without having been reviewed by the people in the company who know about this sort of stuff. I don't know. But it makes me feel very uncomfortable probably because I would be a complete liability for my DH if he ever had to provide any of my medical details to a prospective employer.

High friends who are currently employed at this job didn't fill out this form... Even the most recent employee (about a year ago I think) didn't have this form to fill in...

I agree that the fact it's badly written makes it seem like whoevers written it, hasn't had it read by HR or whoever... DH will speak to his boss about it and he can take it up with HR I guess.
He'll probably fill it in to the "best of his knowledge" and then if they need to go into greater detail (as a PP said earlier) they can always clarify during the medical - maybe it'll become more apparent then... Or maybe HR will turn around and say "er, this is completely inappropriate... Please don't call mental illness "mental disease " FGS"!

When I was offered a job at my local city council they sent me a similarly intrusive form which I had to complete. The one that worried me most at the time was "do you bite your nails" because I'm afraid back then I did (I don't now)

Congrats to your DH, and suggest he sends back the form (not filled in) with a post-it saying "please can we discuss this face-to-face?" and get HR to explain why this is conditional on his job offer.

Good luck, and sorry for the hard times you have obviously had .

momma did you say yes to biting nails then?! Was it relevant to your job? What a crazy question! Lol.
Thankfully most of the questions (except for my medical history and that of DHs parents and siblings) are actually fairly reasonable. They ask if he's been exposed to hazardous materials etc... That to me sounds like arse covering so people can't sue if they get some life threatening disease.
But I don't get why they want to know age of death and cause of death for his family members!! I forgot that one

A note saying he'd wish to discuss it is a fab idea too.

You don't have to specify but a thought. If it is a job in an airport (especially if something like air traffic control which I believe requires a medical and huge focus) Is this a knee jeek reaction "panic" due to the incident with the pilot and the deliberate plane crash a short while ago? Could it be a hastily thrown together asking about mental health issues which has to have other stuff on as well for them to not be accused of prejudice. Dykwim?

Is this a US based employer ?

Years ago I went for an "interview" with a major US firm. We were all presented questionnaires with quite odd questions:

"On a social evening with a colleague, Mike, you learn that Mike occasionally smokes marijuana. Do you -

a) tell your line manager
b) tell Mikes line manager
c) tell the police

?"

I may not have got the job, because I wrote:

"d) mind my own business outside of the office. X"

Loving the job guesses
Not a US firm and nothing to do with airports.

It is in the entertainment industry though!

Lurking lol, that does seem a bit extraordinary. Love your response!

Can I have another guess ?

Something in the nuclear industry ? When I applied for a job with BNFL in the 80s, every candidate had a full (including "cough" ) medical before starting. I spent 2 days at Sellafield at their expense . Not that there's much to get up to there.

This was just after "Edge of Darkness" was shown .

"Who in your family" not "has anyone in your family"?

This is so weirdly intrusive. I would want to know the purpose.

Oops just saw the bit about entertainment industry ...

It may simply be a requirement of the employer's insurance provider, which may have been changed in the past year.

I don't think they mean you. In a medical questionnaire, family history is blood relatives, as it has a bearing on his own risk of those conditions. Sounds like a standard ocupational health assessment. If he's uncomfortable then he should ask for an appointment instead.

Why is illness better than disease btw? They're synonyms.

Are you sure it means you?

It's common practice to ask if there is a family history of those things, but family history (or 'had anyone in your family ever had...') means genetic family.
For my kids, who are adopted, I just answer don't know for all of these.

Yes, the mean me.
They ask for history of your husband/wife...