Occupational Health report - GDPR

[ChelseaWatson]

I’ve recently had an occupational health review and the report was sent to my line manager yesterday. My line manager told me today that he has sent that report onto his line manager as he asked to see it. I’ve been off with work related stress.

I don’t see the issue. It’s probably the case that your manager can’t make decisions on how to support you back to work and needs to refer to his LM and HR. Both would need to see the report to see what measures need to be taken

Whether that is acceptable or not will depend on factors such as how they stated the purpose of their data collection relating to the report and the use that will be made of the data. It will also depend on whether they have a clear and secure process for ensuring that it is only passed on to people who are authorised to see it.

Do you have any more information about why you feel they may not have acted correctly?

EDITED TO ADD: Like the PP, I don't see that there is anything that is unacceptable in principal about the data being shared in this way, provided it is done in accordance with their stated data protection policy.

In my experience occ health will often ask your permission to share reports with your manager, I’m not sure what happens if you say no as I’ve always agreed to it. I guess they just get a summary maybe?
Occ health work for or are part of the company, they are not like your NHS Dr

Just to add to what PP have said the occupational health service may not even need to ask for consent to share your report with your line managers if this is already covered by a different legal bases in your organisation's privacy policy.

I have no issue sharing it with my line manager but he has passed it on to his line manager. There are elements of the report I wouldn’t want him knowing regarding my mental health.

How can your line manager or the organisation support you if it isn’t shared? An occ health report will generally be stored in your file so everyone in HR can see it and on request senior management in your line.

I have never been sent a full OCC health report. Just any parts that are relevant to me. If I have wanted to share with my LM, I would always ask the person if that is ok. In my (large) organisation it is only sent to HR and the person whose appointment it was. Is it a large organisation you work with? With an HR dept you can ask.

It depends on why he's passed it to his line manager. Under GDPR it is not legal for a boss to share information about all their employees with their boss, without those employees' permission just because they want to. However if there is an organisational need for the line manager to know, then yes, your line manager can share the information.

So for example your boss couldn't just share that your mental health meant you couldn't do these specific tasks or could only work these hours, just because he was chatting about his team to his boss. However if his boss (or another employee) rotas everyone on to different roles through the week, and your mental health means you now can't do some of those roles, if would be fair for your boss to tell that other employee that due to your mental health you could no longer do those roles.

The line manager could also potentially legitimately share the information with his boss if he needed support making reasonable adjustments for OP. What is important it what the OP's organisation's privacy policy says about how data can be shared.

The rationale was so that he can support my line manager supporting me. The reasonable adjustments are regular breaks and regular weekly check ins. Not sure how the line manager needs loads of support with that!

Surely it depends what your role is?

If you are a bus driver doing a timed route, regular breaks might mean adjusting the schedule. If you are a GP receptionist it might mean the phone lines go nuts as the only other receptionist covers. Etc

I would take this as, your regular breaks have an impact on service delivery and your LM is stumped how to deal with that.

Is that wrong?

@ChelseaWatson perhaps your LM needs support because they are filling the gap left by you needing support... plus they also are managing the HR side of documenting the support you need, the meetings that are held and so on. It's not your problem so you probably don't see the impact, but their LM is looking after them the same as yours is looking after you

Very important that your line manager gets support in optimising support for you and to ensure that all channels are explored.
If I was line managing an employee with work related stress, I would seek support from my line manager too

OHS will only and should only share a report with people you have agreed may see the report, even to share with your direct line manager they must have your permission. You should also see the report before it is released and you can ask for amendments if you feel the report is not accurate.They can share proposed adjustments, potential return to work timescales etc without sharing the actual report. There are some expectations to this, but those would normally fall out with a standard employee off sick OHS