Does anyone understand about Occupational Health?

[MascaraGirl]

Posting here for traffic and I will be deliberately vague for privacy.

i have a team member who got injured last month. She’s now out of hospital and on the mend. Her sick note runs out next week. She is well enough to WFH and would like to do this (fine with me) but we can’t have her back on site til OH have done an assessment and made any adjustments, which makes sense. But does the OH assessment also apply to WFH? Is it ok for her to WFH before the assessment?

HR are being really slow to respond at the moment. I should add that this team member is very conscientious and is very keen to start working again.

If her fit note has run out, then in principle, she is fit to work. Did the fit note expressly say that she would be good to work e.g.after 2 weeks or was it vague? If she is telling you that she needs adjustments then it would be reasonable to have OH verify this and check that she is fit. For now, you might be able to rely on what she is telling you.

It's difficult to make a judgement about this unless all circumstances are known-e.g. how does the illness affect people usually/what is her experience. But generally it's best to remember that you are not medically trained, so rely on medical advice where it appears (like the fit note or OH, balanced with common sense re what your employee is telling you. I wouldn't rush her back to work if your company are saying that best practice is OH first,a good approach might be to phase the return and build up time each day until she is full time, checking in with her along the way on how she is coping. But again, difficult to judge this or advise on it without knowing more about the circumstances.

What's the reasoning behind the OH assessment? Is it company policy for all return to work processes or was there something specific about her health or role that triggered it?

Usually it depends on the injury, the work, and her WFH arrangements. For example if her work involves sitting at a desk for hours, her injury affects her spinal health, and she doesn't have a desk at home so she's planning to work from a laptop on the sofa, that's not safe. On the other hand if she had an ankle injury, lives in a one level flat but works in a building up three flights of stairs with no lift then WFH could well be safer.