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Health and Safety at Work Act 2015

Enforcement and other matters - Inspectors and health and safety medical practitioners - Health and safety medical practitioners

184: Health and safety medical practitioners may require workers to be medically examined

You could also call this:

“Health and safety medical checks for workers exposed to workplace hazards”

You can be asked to have a medical check-up by a health and safety medical practitioner if they think you might have been around something dangerous at work. This can happen if the practitioner believes that by checking you or testing a sample from you, they can find out if you were near the danger, how much you were exposed to it, or how it might have affected your health.

The health and safety medical practitioner can send you a written notice asking you to do two things. First, they can ask you to see a doctor and get a certificate saying if you’re fit to work. Second, they can ask you to give a sample, like blood or urine, to be tested. They will tell you who should take the sample and who should test it. You’ll need to give the health and safety medical practitioner a written report of the test results.

In this part of the law, a ‘significant hazard’ means something that could cause death or a serious injury or illness. Sometimes, the effects of these hazards depend on how often or how much you’re exposed to them. Other times, you might not notice the effects until long after you’ve been around the hazard.

For more information about what happens after this examination, you can check section 185 of this law.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM5977171.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Workplace safety
Work and jobs > Worker rights
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183: Powers of entry and inspection of health and safety medical practitioners, or

“Medical experts can visit and check workplaces for health and safety reasons”

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185: Health and safety medical practitioners may suspend workers in certain cases, or

“Doctor can stop you from doing unsafe work”

Part 4 Enforcement and other matters
Inspectors and health and safety medical practitioners: Health and safety medical practitioners

184Health and safety medical practitioners may require workers to be medically examined

  1. A health and safety medical practitioner may exercise the powers under this section if satisfied that—

  2. any worker is, has been, or may have been exposed to a significant hazard while at work; and
    1. by examining the worker or causing a sample taken from the worker to be tested or analysed, it is likely to be possible to determine—
      1. whether the worker is or has been exposed to the hazard; or
        1. the extent to which the worker is or has been exposed to the hazard; or
          1. the extent to which the worker's health has been or may have been affected by exposure to the hazard.

          2. A health and safety medical practitioner may, by notice in writing to the worker,—

          3. require the worker—
            1. to be examined by a health practitioner; and
              1. to provide to the health and safety medical practitioner a certificate from the health practitioner as to the worker's fitness for work:
              2. require the worker—
                1. to allow a person (or person of a kind) specified in the notice to take from the worker a sample of a kind specified in the notice; and
                  1. to have the sample tested or analysed by a person (or person of a kind) specified in the notice in a manner specified in the notice; and
                    1. to provide the health and safety medical practitioner with a written report from the person who tests or analyses the sample on the results of the tests and analyses done.

                    2. In this section and in section 185, significant hazard means a hazard that is an actual or a potential cause or source of—

                    3. death; or
                      1. notifiable injury or illness the severity of whose effects on any person depends (entirely or among other things) on the extent or frequency of the person's exposure to the hazard; or
                        1. notifiable injury or illness that does not usually occur, or usually is not easily detectable, until a significant time after exposure to the hazard.

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