Organizing medical check-ups for your employees is a legal obligation. Keeping track of them is an additional one! You must appoint a Prevention and Occupational Health Service (SPST) from the first employee.
The French Labor Code sets out the rules and employers must comply rigorously.
At the end of each medical examination, the occupational health doctor issues a medical certificate to the employee and the company.
Key reminders regarding medical certificates :
- Medical certificate: at the end of each visit (except pre-resumption visits);
- Aptitude certificate: in the event of reinforced individual check-ups;
- Notice of inaptitude: issued by the occupational health doctor at the end of all visits (except for medical appointment prior to returning to work);
- Proposals for individual measures to accommodate, suit or transform the employee’s workstation: with the certificate of follow-up or the notice of suitability.
These medical certificates will need to be updated!
Context: the French Occupational Health and Safety law dated August 2, 2021, strengthened the prevention system and introduced a number of changes through its decrees.
The reform was scheduled for the end of 2024. But it was postponed by six months to give software publishers time to adapt.
And now, here we are! The decree of March 3, 2025, definitively confirms that the changes will come into force on July 1, 2025:
- Service de Prévention et de Santé au Travail instead of Service de Santé au Travail;
- Information relating to the employee’s job will have to specify whether special arrangements have been made or whether individual reinforced surveillance is in place and the start date;
- Medical certificates will include, for each medical appointment, the post-exposure, post-professional and mid-career visit;
- Notices of unfitness will include a checkbox for exemption from reclassification, specifying that this is a case allowing exceptional dismissal without consultation of the CSE;
- The following note will be added to the employee’s signature: “I acknowledge having received the certificate (notice – proposal) dated…”.
If you are thinking the outsourcing the management of Occupational Health could be the solution for your company, do not hesitate, contact us now:
Références :
– Code du travail (articles L4624-1 à 4)
– Loi 2021-1018 du 2 août 2021– Arrêté du 5 mars 2025, JO du 15, texte n° 9
