Doctors note sent to company, not employee

Company asks employee on long term sick leave (6 months) to visit company doctor for second opinion (employee going to own doctor for notes et al), doctor performs checkup and writes note for company.

Employee requests copy, but is told to go to company HR , Doctor will only verbally state contents of letter.

Any ideas on legality of this, why will doctor not send copy to both parties ??

In such circumstances would the employee not have signed so sort of waiver/consent that may govern the transfer of information? I've been to a company appointed doc myself before but can't remember the details of what forms I might have signed!

crumdub12 said:

Company asks employee on long term sick leave (6 months) to visit company doctor for second opinion (employee going to own doctor for notes et al), doctor performs checkup and writes note for company.

Employee requests copy, but is told to go to company HR , Doctor will only verbally state contents of letter.

Any ideas on legality of this, why will doctor not send copy to both parties ??

Click to expand...

The doctor in this case is acting for their customer, the company. Their duty of care is to the company. If the company wants to release a copy of the letter to the employee, that is their decision to make. It is not for the doctor to presume either way.

Cannot see what issue is with letter going to both employer / employee.....

Situation is :

Employee gets company checkup, and then note to go back to work. There is a disagreement in interpretation of detail in checkup letter, Doctor verbally communicated detail to employee over phone

Doctor / employee have one view HR another ....




again, anyway to confirm if employee can get records directly from doctor, rather than from employer, any web based data, or docs that can be found that cover legislation pertaining to this.

Might be worth checking with the Data Protection Commissioner to see of the employee has rights to a copy of the report in such cases.

Moved from Askaboutlaw to Work, Careers, Un/employment, Further Education/Training

which is where employer/employee rights and responsibilities are discussed.

All occupational health doctors get an employee to sign a waiver in the beginning of the assessment. Previous posters are correct that the contract is between the doctor and the company in this instance.

If the employer is one bound by Freedom of Information legislation there will be no problem getting a copy of the report - FOI covers medical reports that must be made available for an employee to make corrections as necessary. An employee should send a written request for the report to their manager/hr first. This would normally be enough. Failing that go to the FOI route.

Furthermore, occupational health doctors will often add that if there is anything the employee does not wish the employer to be alerted to they should state it formally. I would imagine that such info would be alluded to in some way in the report though.

Cheeus said:

If the employer is one bound by Freedom of Information legislation there will be no problem getting a copy of the report - FOI covers medical reports that must be made available for an employee to make corrections as necessary. An employee should send a written request for the report to their manager/hr first. This would normally be enough. Failing that go to the FOI route.

Click to expand...

FOI legislation only relates to Govt bodies. Did you mean to refer to Data Protection legislation?

No, I meant FOI. I said if the employeris bound by it. Orginal poster didn't specify why type of employer he had. FOI is relevant for many employees, but yes, not all.

There were no contracts signed between doctor and employee.


Data Protections office state that Company / Doctor can be contacted for letter, and only way doctor can refuse is if he specifically states he is working as " Data Processor" for company on this issue.