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Pre-Employment Health Questions (The Equality Act 2010)

The Equality Act came into force with effect from October 2010 and covers numerous areas of protected characteristic groups in order to eradicate discrimination and harassment of any form.

Included in the Act is protection from disability discrimination, which previously fell under the remit of the Disability Discrimination Act.  However the provisions of disability under the Equality Act have been enhanced.

The Equality Act states that it is unlawful to ask health related questions before you have offered a job to an applicant. Once employment has been offered health questions can then be asked, provided that the questions are appropriate to the role being offered.

This part of the Act has a huge impact on employers and it is strongly advised that the issuing of generic health questionnaires with application forms is a practice which must cease immediately, along with pre-employment medical examinations.

The wording of the Act does infer that questions can be asked prior to employment being offered provided that it is purely for the purpose of establishing if the applicant can comply with a specific function that is intrinsic to the work concerned, or to establish if there would be a reasonable adjustment required to allow the applicant to carry out the role.

This is an extremely contentious section of the legislation and could be open to interpretation and therefore of course open to claims of disability if the applicant disagrees with the purpose of asking any such questions. Clarity and guidance will become more apparent through case law when such issues are challenged.