Managing existing health conditions and disabilities in the workplace

Why?

We think that it’s important to further clarify within the standards that registrants do not need to stop practising simply because they have a physical or mental health condition. Where a registrant’s physical or mental health will detrimentally impact their ability to practise safely or effectively they will need to adjust their practice, and only if this is not possible will need to stop practising. 

Specific standards:

Manage your health

• 6.3 You must take responsibility for assessing whether changes to your physical and/or mental health will detrimentally impact your ability to practise safely and effectively. If you are unsure about your ability to do so, ask an appropriate health and care professional to make an assessment on your behalf.
• 6.4 You must adjust your practice if your physical and/or mental health will detrimentally impact your ability to practise safely and effectively. These adjustments must promote safe and effective practice. Where it is not possible to make these adjustments within your scope of practice, you must stop practising.

Expectations of registrants:

• We have clarified language within the standards around a registrant’s responsibility to assess whether changes to their physical and/or mental health will detrimentally impact their ability to practise safely and effectively. Recognising that registrants may not always have the capacity to assess their own health we have introduced an option for registrants to ask an appropriate health and care professional to make an assessment on their behalf.
• We want to better support registrants with health conditions and disabilities and have therefore clarified our expectations around practising with a physical or mental health condition. We will only require registrants to make adjustments to their practice if their physical or mental health will detrimentally impact their ability to practise safely and effectively. We have not been prescriptive about what these adjustments must look like. We recognise that there are a range of adjustments that can ensure safe and effective practice, and these will largely depend upon a registrant’s profession, work-place context and health needs.

Resources

To support the consultation period, we hosted six workshops. These workshops explored each key theme of the consultation and provided an opportunity to ask questions about the revisions we have made.

You can watch a recording of the managing existing health conditions and disabilities in the workplace workshop below.