Pre-employment and exit medicals

A pre-employment medical, also called a baseline or entry medical, records a new employee's health before they start working for you. It confirms they're fit for the job you're hiring them for, and it sets the baseline that every later medical is compared against.

That baseline matters. If an employee's hearing or lung function changes over the years, you need to know whether it happened in your workplace or before they arrived. Without a baseline, you can't tell, and that makes occupational disease claims much harder to manage fairly.

The exit medical closes the loop. When someone leaves, a final medical records their health at the end of their employment. Together, the entry and exit medicals give you a complete, defensible record for each employee.

Certain occupations require both by law, and for any job with health exposures they're good practice. Section 8 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 places the duty on the employer to keep the workplace without risk to health, and medical records are how you show you've done it.

1. Tell us who and what. Send us the number of people, their job titles, and whether they're new starters or leavers.
2. We confirm the medical type. We match each role to the right tests, based on the exposures involved.
3. Choose where. For groups, our mobile unit comes to your site. For one or two new starters, they can visit our Century City clinic.
4. The medical. A physical examination takes 10 to 30 minutes, plus about 10 minutes each for vision and audiometry and 5 to 10 minutes for spirometry, where needed.
5. Certificates and records. You receive a certificate of fitness for each person. Medical records are kept confidential, as the law requires.

For new employees, book the medical before they start in the role, or within their first days on the job. That way the baseline reflects their health before any exposure in your workplace.

For leavers, book the exit medical during their notice period, so it's done before their last day.

For employees changing roles, for example moving from the office into production, treat the move like a new start. A medical for the new role confirms they're fit for its specific hazards.

Pre-employment and exit medicals are most important where employees are exposed to:

• Noise, such as production lines, workshops and plant rooms
• Dust, fumes or chemicals, such as manufacturing, laboratories and cleaning
• Work at height, driving or operating machinery
• Food handling
• Construction work (see Annexure 3 construction medicals)

industries: Food and beverage manufacturing · Warehousing and logistics · Construction · Laboratories · Engineering and workshops · Retail and offices

• Annual medicals: ongoing surveillance after the baseline
• Annexure 3 construction medicals: for construction workers
• Risk assessment: find out which exposures your roles involve
• First Aid Level 1 training: trained first aiders for your new and existing staff
• HIRA training: teach your team to identify the hazards behind each medical