Union issues warning on health checks

Specialists’ union Prospect is reminding safety reps that the use of pre-employment medicals to weed out applicants on health grounds is now illegal under the Equality Act 2010, which came into effect on 1 October 2010.

A TUC briefing on the Act explains that prospective employers cannot ask health questions “until the applicant has been able to successfully pass an interview, or some other assessment, to show that they meet some of the non-health requirements of the job.”

The briefing, Equality Act 2010: a TUC guide, points out that there are limited exceptions, including questions designed to assess whether an applicant “would be able to carry out a core function of the job with reasonable adjustments having been made as appropriate” and positive efforts to employ workers with disabilities.