Occupational Health Referrals
Guidance for managers
Occupational Health management reviews are undertaken at the request of an employee’s line manager, Health and Safety Manager or by HR who will arrange an assessment by Occupational Health.
Occupational Health management referrals are now made online using the Cohort portal. Before you make your first referral, you will need to set up an account via the Cohort portal.
Support with the online referral system (Cohort)
These training videos can help you with the Cohort system. You will need to enter a specific password/ username – for details of these see the ‘OH referrals: training video details’ document (click on ‘Downloads’ at the bottom of this webpage).
For written guidance, see the ‘Cohort FAQs’ and ‘Cohort Manager Guidance’ documents - you can find these under the ‘Downloads’ link at the bottom of this webpage.
If you are still having any technical issues, please contact Cohort on 0800 011 6106.
Assessment appointment
This assessment will be to meet with the employee to assess the cause of the issue and may seek to obtain reports from their GP and/or other health professional. These enquiries are subject to the requirements of the Access to Medical Reports Act 1988, which affords the member of staff the following rights (in summary):
- To withhold consent for an application to be made to a doctor
- To see a medical report before it is supplied to the Occupational Health Service
- To ask the doctor to amend any part of the report which the employee considers to be inaccurate or misleading
- If the doctor declines to amend the report, to attach a written statement giving the employee’s views on its contents
- To withhold consent to the reports being supplied to the Occupational Health Service
Occupational Health will then send a report to HR outlining, for example
- Current fitness for work and functionality
- Support and adjustments which may benefit the employee
- Likelihood of recurrence
The employee has a right to view the report before it is sent to HR and can choose to withhold consent.
Referral process support
For more details of the referral process, see the ‘Managers Guidance OH Referral Process’ document under the ‘Downloads’ link at the bottom of this webpage.
If you have any general queries or feedback about the process itself please contact Occupational Health on occupationalhealth@leeds.ac.uk