Pre-employment screening
Pre-employment screening collects health information so occupational health can advise on work, adjustments and any further assessment required. Occentra supports that pathway from questionnaire to outcome. It does not decide whether somebody is medically fit for employment.
Pre-placement screening
Healthcare assistant · conditional offer
Questionnaire
Pre-placement health questionnaire
Published form version 9 · submitted
Role context
Healthcare assistant
Patient contact · manual handling
Review
Clinical review required
Exception visible to occupational health
Occupational health outcome
Not yet released
Opinion remains a professional judgement
The operational problem
Most pre-employment screening work begins with a health questionnaire. The operational failure is rarely the questionnaire itself. It is the inability to move routine reviews quickly while making exceptions visible, and to keep the resulting occupational health opinion attached to the role that was being considered.
01
A candidate for an administrative role and a candidate for an exposure-prone or safety-critical role should not be reviewed against the same blank form. The work, hazards and intrinsic demands need to travel with the questionnaire.
02
When every questionnaire looks the same in a shared inbox, the ones that need clinical assessment wait beside the ones that do not.
03
Services update questions as roles, infection-control requirements or customer contracts change. If previous submissions are not bound to the version used, later review is unreliable.
04
Occupational health advice may recommend adjustments, further assessment, or restrictions. Reducing that to a software-generated fitness flag loses the professional judgement the process exists to obtain.
How the work should run
A modern pre-employment screening pathway should make the routine work easy to complete and the exceptions easy to see. The occupational health professional remains responsible for the opinion.
The form should reflect the work being offered, including relevant hazards, immunisation or surveillance requirements, and the questions needed for an occupational health review.
Routine questionnaires can progress through a configured review route. Responses that need further attention should create visible clinical work rather than waiting in an undifferentiated queue.
Some candidates need an appointment, further information, or a more detailed assessment. That work belongs in a case, with the original questionnaire still available.
The authorised advice may support starting work, recommend adjustments, or identify the need for further review. The software records and releases that opinion. It does not generate it.
How Occentra helps
Pre-employment screening uses the same occupational health records as other Occentra work: employees, referrals, cases, versioned forms, appointments and reports.
A referral can capture the request for pre-employment screening, including the role and the questions the service needs to answer. Accepting that referral opens the operational case.
Versioned forms collect the health questionnaire. Submitted answers remain attached to the published template used, so a later change to the form does not rewrite earlier reviews. Where a clinician needs to see the candidate, the appointment and any further assessment stay on the same case.
The occupational health outcome is prepared, reviewed and released through the report process. Referring employers receive the advice appropriate to their role. Clinical detail remains with authorised users.
Relevant capabilities
Occentra does not need a separate product for pre-employment work. It needs forms, cases and outcomes that can represent that pathway clearly.
Publish controlled form versions for different roles and services, and keep each submission bound to the version used.
Treat screening as a request for occupational health services, then continue the review and any assessment in the resulting case.
Make questionnaires awaiting review, and cases needing further assessment, visible as work rather than as unread messages.
Schedule further assessment only where the questionnaire or clinical review requires it.
Release occupational health advice through an explicit approval process, separate from the questionnaire responses.
Retain a readable record of submission, review, assessment and release.
Occentra helps occupational health teams collect questionnaires, review responses, complete assessments and release advice. The occupational health opinion remains a professional judgement. In Great Britain, section 60 of the Equality Act 2010 also generally restricts health questions before a job offer. Pre-employment screening is typically arranged after a conditional or unconditional offer, subject to the limited exceptions in the Act. Occentra does not provide legal advice on when those questions may be asked.
Where this work happens
Pre-employment screening volume is often highest where roles differ sharply, such as healthcare, multi-client occupational health providers and higher education.
Coordinate staff clearance, vaccination, exposure incidents and return-to-work advice across clinical services.
Run multi-client referrals, clinical cases, appointments and reporting from one governed platform.
Support academic, laboratory, estates and professional services teams across campus environments.
Continue
See how screenings, cases and reports remain distinct but linked.
Screening may escalate to a clinical pre-placement assessment where the role demands it.
An operational look at the identity, job demands, questionnaire, Case and advice a pre-placement assessment has to preserve.
Some roles also require baseline or ongoing surveillance after placement.
Screening still begins as a request for occupational health services.
Bring a current questionnaire and clearance route. We will show how review, escalation and occupational health outcomes can sit in the same governed workflow.