Submission of medical records to HSE by Appointed Doctors and Approved Medical Examiners of Divers (AMEDs)

1 April 2011

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) previously wrote to all Appointed Doctors and AMEDs about the introduction of new governance procedures from April 2011. The major change involves a move to paper reviews with a smaller proportion of doctors having a face to face review. The use of paper reviews will require doctors to submit medical records to HSE for scrutiny along with other relevant information. An HSE Medical Inspector will then review all the material to evaluate the performance of the doctor.

HSE Medical Inspectors can require a doctor to disclose medical records using legal powers derived from the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. In doing so, the records are exempt from the non-disclosure provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 and can be disclosed without patient consent. HSE Medical Inspectors would not normally seek to use these powers for obtaining medical records.  In submitting records, you should anonymise them by removing or redacting the employee's name and address. However, you should provide the employee's age and gender.

You must provide copies of medical records, as HSE will destroy them on completion of your review. You should mark them 'medical in confidence' for submitting by post. On receipt, access to the records will be restricted to HSE Medical Inspectors and a small number of designated staff specifically trained in dealing with 'medical in confidence' information.