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4. Understand your business needs

Health surveillance

As an employer, you should have an ongoing health surveillance scheme if:

  • an identifiable disease or health effect may be linked to the exposure at work
  • it is likely that the disease or health effect may occur under the particular conditions of the work
  • there are valid techniques for detecting signs of the disease or effect
  • the technique is low risk to workers

Valid techniques are those that are precise enough to detect something wrong that could be caused by exposure to a health risk; and which are safe and practicable to conduct.

Health surveillance is a legal requirement in specific circumstances when there is still some residual risk to worker’s health despite the control measures you may have put in place, and they are likely to be exposed to:

Health surveillance is used to identify occupational diseases, such as:

Medical surveillance

As defined in certain regulations, you must use medical surveillance where there could be exposure to certain high hazard substances or agents. A doctor appointed by HSE must do the medical surveillance, except for some lower risk asbestos work.

This includes work with:

Link URLs in this page

  1. Overviewhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/overview.htm
  2. Manage the riskhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/manage-the-risk.htm
  3. Consult workers about health surveillancehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/consult-workers.htm
  4. Setting up a health surveillance schemehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/setting-up.htm
  5. Act on the results of health surveillancehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/act-on-results.htm
  6. Record keepinghttps://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/record-keeping.htm
  7. Health monitoring, biological monitoring and biological effect monitoringhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/health-biological-monitoring.htm
  8. noisehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/noise/healthsurveillance.htm
  9. vibrationhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/vibration/hav/advicetoemployers/healthsurveillance.htm
  10. substances that are hazardous to healthhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/coshh/basics/surveillance.htm
  11. chronic obstructive pulmonary diseasehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/guidance/g401.pdf
  12. occupational asthmahttps://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/guidance/g402.pdf
  13. dermatitishttps://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/guidance/g403.pdf
  14. silicosishttps://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/guidance/g404.pdf
  15. asbestoshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/index.htm
  16. leadhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/lead/index.htm
  17. ionising radiationhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/radiation/ionising/index.htm
  18. compressed airhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/compressedair/index.htm
  19. COSHH Legislationhttps://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/2677/schedule/6/made
  20. Previous page Consult workershttps://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/consult-workers.htm
  21. Next page Setting up a health surveillance scheme https://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/setting-up.htm
  22. View a printable version of the whole guidehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/print.htm
  23. Occupational healthhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/health-surveillance/occupational-health/index.htm
  24. Noisehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/noise/healthsurveillance.htm
  25. Vibrationhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/vibration/hav/advicetoemployers/healthsurveillance.htm
  26. COSHHhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/coshh/basics/surveillance.htm
  27. Asbestoshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/index.htm
  28. Leadhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/lead/index.htm
  29. Ionising radiationhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/radiation/ionising/index.htm

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Updated 2025-01-23