Medical questionnaire

Fitness to practice Occupational Health check

You may also hear this offer condition referred to as a ‘Medical’, ‘Fitness to Practice’, ‘Occupational Health Check’ or ‘Occupational Health Assessment’.

The fitness to practice Occupational Health check is to ensure that you are able to take part in all aspects of your course, both academically and on placement. Courses requiring this check include Midwifery, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Paramedic Science, Physiotherapy, Teacher Training courses, Operational Department Practice, Diagnostic Radiography and Speech and Language Therapy.

The fitness to practice check is required as these courses lead to a professional registration. The courses and subsequent professional roles, are both physically and mentally taxing and each have their own specific skills and requirements. The assessment is tailored to the requirements and risks of each course and will highlight where the work could impact on an existing medical or psychological condition, whilst providing recommendations on reasonable adjustments that could be made to support you on the course/placement. If you have passed your interview and received a conditional offer from us, we will request consent from you to pass your details to Heales Medical. This is a UK-based provider of occupational health services, used by York St John to provide the occupational health assessments. This process begins in the spring, alongside the DBS processes. Heales provides a wide range of occupational health (OH) services for our staff, students and applicants.

Once we have your consent, we will set you up on their system and you will receive a questionnaire, directly from Heales. Upon completion of this, a member of the Heales OH Team will begin your Occupational Health Assessment. They may feel that your response requires further discussion, whichwill be organised with you individually, via telephone or online. It may be that once your assessment is complete, Heales recommend adjustments that could be implemented for you to access the course/placement successfully. If this is the case, the university academic and disability teams will review these and come to an agreement on the outcome. You will then be informed of this. Whilst you may receive a course clearance certificate from Heales, this offer condition will not be passed by the university until the outcome of the academic/disability review has been agreed. This Occupational Health process has been created to ensure that you and those around you on your course are well supported and able to achieve. However, please be aware that it may not be possible to implement all adjustments recommended by Heales.

Please note that being accepted for support by the Disability Support and Inclusion team is not a replacement for the Fitness to Practice check. The Disability Support and Inclusion team do not assess your fitness to teach or practice.

For Health courses only

You will also need to complete a Fitness for Placement check. All Health courses require certain vaccinations to be taken prior to placements. You will need to provide your vaccination record and undertake any missing vaccinations to meet this check. Again the check is completed via Heales Medical and you will be sent the necessary information directly from Heales, once your Occupational Health Assessment has been cleared. Different courses require different vaccinations to be in place.

Whilst the Fitness for Placement check does not need to be completed before the course starts, it must be done before you can go on placement. Please note that if this check is not completed, you will not be able to attend placement and all placements need to be completed successfully in order for you to pass the course.