When your employer’s occupational health report gets used against you

An occupational healthAn independent medical service that employers use to assess how a health condition is affecting your ability to work. A referral to occupational health is not a step toward dismissal, but the report p... report can shape what happens to your job, but it isn’t a neutral document written for your benefit. Understanding whose side it’s actually on, and where things can go wrong with it, matters as much as anything in the report itself.

The OH adviser works for your employer, not you

Kapfunde v Abbey National established this plainly: an occupational health practitioner engaged by your employer owes their duty of careA legal responsibility to take reasonable care to avoid causing someone harm. In an occupational health context, it matters because this duty is owed to your employer, not to you. to your employer, not to you. They aren’t examining you as your doctor would. In that case, the OH adviser never even saw or examined the claimant in person, and reviewed only a written questionnaire before concluding she was likely to have higher-than-average absence.

This doesn’t mean OH advice is worthless or automatically biased against you. It means you shouldn’t assume it’s operating in your interest the way your own GP or consultant would.

Your employer can rely on a thorough report, but not a thin one

Kelly v Royal Mail Group confirmed that your employer is allowed to give considerable weight to a properly reasoned occupational health opinion when deciding whether you’re disabled. What they can’t do is simply accept a bare conclusion without engaging with the question themselves.

In that case, four separate, detailed OH reports all reached the same conclusion, and the tribunal found the employer had genuinely turned its own mind to the disability question rather than rubber-stamping what OH said. A single thin report with a bare conclusion, and no independent engagement from your employer, doesn’t carry the same weight. If a decision about you rests on an OH report that reads more like an assertion than reasoned analysis, that’s worth challenging.

Can occupational health get you sacked?

Occupational health does not decide whether you keep your job. Only your employer does that. An OH adviser gives an opinion, and what happens next is a management decision. Your employer carries the responsibility for it, not the person who wrote the report.

That distinction does not make dismissal impossible, and it would be wrong to suggest otherwise. Where your health genuinely means you cannot return to your role, and there is no realistic prospect of that changing within a reasonable timeframe, a capabilityOne of the potentially fair reasons an employer can use to dismiss someone, covering situations where you are unable to do your job to the required standard, including through ill health. A fair capab... dismissal can be fair, even where occupational health was properly consulted throughout the process. The legal test does not reward effort. It asks whether your employer followed a fair process, reached a reasonable decision on the evidence, and actually explored whether adjustments could close the gap before deciding they couldn’t. Our guide on occupational health assessments sets out what a properly explored duty to make adjustments actually looks like.

Where a dismissal built on an OH report tips into unfair, the pattern is usually one of these.

• Your employer never showed you the report, or gave you the chance to comment on it, before deciding.
• The report itself was thin, a bare conclusion with no real reasoning behind it, the exact weakness Kelly v Royal Mail identified above.
• Your employer ignored medical evidence you put forward that conflicted with what OH concluded.
• No reasonable adjustmentsChanges an employer must make under the Equality Act 2010 for a disabled employee, where without them the employee would be at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled colleagues. What coun... were genuinely considered, or the capability process itself, warnings, support, a real opportunity to improve or return, was skipped or rushed.

If any of that sounds like your situation, our complete guide to facing a disciplinary at work covers unfair dismissalA legal claim you can bring if your employer dismissed you without a fair reason or without following a fair process. You normally need two years of continuous employment to qualify, though some dismi... and what your options are once it has happened.

What to do if an OH report or referral doesn’t sit right

Ask to see the referral questions your employer sent to occupational health, not just the report that comes back. If the questions themselves assume a link between your disability and a performance or conduct issue, rather than asking an open question, that framing is worth challenging directly.

If a return-to-work form, referral, or report contains something inaccurate about your health, especially something that attributes an issue to your disability incorrectly, raise it in writing and ask for a correction. If your employer upholds a grievance about it but never actually corrects the document, that gap matters, as Spinks shows.

Remember that the OH adviser isn’t your advocate. If you disagree with an OH conclusion, you’re entitled to get your own medical evidence and put it to your employer directly, rather than treating the OH report as the final word.

If the real issue is whether your employer should have made changes based on what OH recommended, our guide on the duty to make reasonable adjustments covers that ground. If you’re not sure your condition meets the legal threshold for disability at all, start with our guide on what counts as a disability in law. And if you have not been referred yet and want to know what the process actually involves, our guide to occupational health assessments covers what to expect and what your employer has to do with the report.