international offices

Health At Work


 

AXA ICAS provides a comprehensive range of expert Occupational Health support services to help you look after your employees’ wellbeing. With 65 years of corporate healthcare experience behind us, we fully understand the complex interplay that exists between work, health and performance.

We can offer help at every stage - from recruitment to retirement - helping to ensure you achieve that crucial work/health/performance balance. Which services you take will largely depend on the size and specific requirements of your organisation – and we'll tailor a package to suit your needs.

Pre-employment Medical Clearance

We all know there's far more to recruiting a new team member than just a good CV and a successful interview. As an employer it is your legal duty to ensure the candidate is medically fit for the job you are offering.

The law also says that you must not put a prospective employee in a situation that could aggravate an existing medical condition. Workplace health and safety legislation also dictates that you should also be fully aware of how any existing medical conditions could affect other employees in your organisation or members of the public.

There's also the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) to consider. The law states that you must comply with this act, but supposing an applicant with a disability really isn't suitable for the job? What can you do to ensure there's no legal recrimination if you turn them down?

Our Pre-employment Medical Clearance service will provide answers to all these questions and give you the vital information you need to make a fully informed decision.

For example
A leisure centre was very keen to employ a particular candidate. However, they were concerned that his asthma would be a problem as his duties would involve working in an environment where he would be exposed to chlorine fumes from the swimming pool. We were able to reassure them that this situation would not aggravate his medical condition or affect him in carrying out his duties.

We offer a range of Pre-employment Medical Clearance services to help you. This includes Pre-employment health surveillance screening to provide a baseline assessment of the health of a candidate and to identify any potential health issues. This is carried out by qualified occupational health personnel and the results can be kept as an important record of good practice. This can prove very useful should any claim for compensation arise as a result of future ill health.

Company Medical Adviser

We can appoint an occupational health physician (a doctor with a specialist interest in occupational medicine), to check that you have properly identified and addressed the health risks in your workplace and that you meet all of your statutory health and safety requirements.

They can also assist you in developing medical protocols and workplace health policies to improve the working environment for your employees.

Your Company Medical Adviser can also help you manage especially difficult or complex health-related issues.

For example
A company was concerned for the health of its employees following the discovery of some uncovered asbestos on the premises. Our Company Medical Adviser (CMA) was called in, assessed the situation and then briefed the management team about the appropriate steps that needed to be taken. Our health and safety team carried out specialised measurements and the CMA was subsequently able to reassure management, unions and employees.

The skills of a Company Medical Adviser include:

•  advising on day to day health issues

•  interpretation of MI reports to give them real relevance

•  advice on emerging health problems eg SARS

•  liaison with other services – Health and Safety Executive, Employee Assistance Programme

•  policy development – Sickness Absence, Drugs and Alcohol.

Medical Referral

In most cases employees who are sick will be able to tell you what the problem is and when they are likely to return to work. However, the health condition or problem may not be so clear cut and in such cases, our Medical Referral service enables you to refer an individual for an independent assessment of a medical problem. Once this information is obtained you discuss the matter with our Company Medical Adviser, who can help you deal effectively with the matter – for example by referring the employee for treatment, rehabilitation or ill health early retirement.

The diagnosis can reveal whether the condition is work-related, as well as giving you an indication of the employee's likely return to work date. Medical Referrals may be helpful for:

•  identifying the cause of frequent short-term absence

•  confirming whether long-term absent employees are able to return to work

•  identifying whether there may be a medical reason for an employees poor performance, or inability to carry out normal duties

•  maintaining accurate clinical records to help you comply with legislation on fitness for work issues.

For example
A packaging line operator in a pharmaceutical company was absent from work with a shoulder problem. He was reviewed by our occupational physician who established that his condition was not work related and that he was receiving appropriate treatment. A return to work rehabilitation plan was agreed with his manager. The employee had worries over whether he would lose his job and his manager had concerns over the viability of the rehabilitation plan. The occupational physician was able to address these issues and oversaw the return to work programme to its successful conclusion.

Ill Health Retirement

We have extensive experience in managing and assessing cases of ill-health retirement both to management and to pension funds.

We can arrange and conduct appropriate medical investigations and provide an expert medical opinion on the findings – ensuring that your ill health retirement fund is managed fairly and effectively on the basis of accurate reliable evidence.

For more information please ring on 0800 017 0800

Make an Occupational Health Referral »

What our clients say...

"Our employees utilise all aspects of the services and give us excellent feedback."
Frontier Economics Ltd