What checking a preventive requirement means
A preventive check compares specific job requirements with appropriate evidence: training, qualifications, information received or conditions needed to perform a task. It is not a general certificate that someone can undertake any activity without risk. The starting point must be the actual role and its assessment, rather than screening criteria invented from stereotypes. Evidence must answer a defined question about work.
In intermediation, clarify what each entity is doing: receiving an application, verifying a qualification, arranging training or employing the person. These actions have different consequences. An employer’s duty to protect its workforce does not disappear when recruitment is outsourced. Equally, missing documentation does not by itself establish that a person lacks capability. It may show that something still needs verification, updating or provision before the relevant work starts.
Placement agency, temporary work agency and hiring employer
Law 3/2023 regulates placement agencies as employment intermediaries. Their activity is subject to a responsible declaration and duties concerning free services for workers, privacy, accessibility and equality. Ordinary placement does not mean the agency employs the candidate in order to assign them to its client. The subsequent employer remains identifiable through the actual employment arrangement.
A temporary work agency employs people and temporarily assigns them to a user undertaking under a specific legal framework. One entity may conduct different permitted activities, but must identify the capacity in which it acts. For prevention, the supplier’s trading name is insufficient: establish who signs the employment contract, directs the actual work and whether a temporary assignment exists. A business directly employing a selected candidate retains its employer obligations.
Turn the job assessment into an accurate vacancy
The job description should identify tasks, environment, equipment, relevant schedules and conditions affecting prevention. A multi-skilled operator label does not reveal whether the person will drive equipment, handle loads or enter an area containing chemical agents. The business must translate technical job information into proportionate professional requirements that recruiters and applicants can understand. Ambiguity should be resolved before selecting against those requirements.
For temporary agency assignments, Royal Decree 216/1999 requires prior assessment of the job and information from the user undertaking to the agency about risks, measures, training and health surveillance. Direct employment also requires prevention adapted to the work. A vacancy should not compensate for poor job design by demanding arbitrary personal characteristics. Where an adjustment could enable a function, that possibility needs consideration through the appropriate process.
Check qualifications and training without confusing them
A qualification, declared experience and a preventive training course establish different things. Review should check document identity, issuer, content and relevance to the proposed tasks. Validity must be assessed against the applicable requirement and changes in work. There is no universal expiry period for every safety course or generic card authorising operation of every machine. A document should not be accepted solely because it appears in a familiar format.
Preventive training must be sufficient, appropriate and adapted to the job. Missing training is arranged before exposure to the relevant risk. Temporary work agencies have expressly regulated duties to provide necessary training before assignment, with opportunities for user-undertaking collaboration under specified conditions. A supervised demonstration can check understanding without turning selection into a dangerous test or productive work lacking the required safeguards.
Medical fitness belongs to the healthcare function
Health surveillance and control require healthcare personnel with accredited competence, training and capability. A recruiter cannot interpret laboratory results, diagnose a limitation or issue a medical fitness assessment. The professional profile must also be distinguished from a health conclusion for specified working conditions. Neither provides a permanent guarantee that the worker will face no risk or that workplace controls are unnecessary.
Article 22 of the Spanish LPRL establishes voluntariness with defined exceptions, proportionality and confidentiality. The Prevention Services Regulations include initial assessment after joining work or assignment to new tasks involving risks, alongside other circumstances. Those responsible must verify specific rules applicable to particular jobs and temporary agency work. It is incorrect to generalise mandatory examinations before every recruitment or replace proper surveillance with a recruitment questionnaire.
Separate professional records from health information
An application file should contain information necessary for its purpose, with a lawful basis, information for the individual and security measures. Processing health information also requires the specific conditions permitting that processing. A general signature does not make collection of any diagnosis or sharing with everyone involved in recruitment lawful. Access must follow a defined need and role.
Law 15/2022 prohibits employers from asking job applicants about their health conditions. In occupational health surveillance, the employer receives conclusions on fitness or necessary preventive measures, rather than the complete clinical history. The agency should not become a shared medical repository. Access, recipients and retention must be defined, and controller or processor roles assessed against each entity’s actual functions rather than assumed from the commercial contract alone.
Equality, accessibility and proportionate requirements
Screening criteria must relate to actual functions and risks. An arbitrary upper age limit, automatic exclusion because of disability or a generic demand for perfect health is not a preventive assessment. Agencies have equality and accessibility duties; recruitment should allow participation without barriers unrelated to the work required. A convenient filtering rule can still have an unjustified exclusionary effect.
Protecting particularly sensitive workers requires assessment of risks and measures within the relevant framework, rather than treating the category as an exclusion list. Where needed, prevention specialists and competent healthcare staff assess conditions and possible adjustments while preserving confidentiality. Record the professional justification for criteria and review indirect effects of screening. The urgency of filling a vacancy does not justify turning a client preference into an apparently medical requirement.
The specific preventive sequence for agency assignments
First, the user undertaking provides the temporary work agency with the job characteristics, risks and measures derived from its assessment. The agency then verifies and provides required information and training and meets its health-surveillance duties under the applicable regime. Documentary evidence must address the intended job, avoiding copied requirements from another facility or a less demanding task. Responsibilities should remain explicit throughout that exchange.
Before work begins, the user undertaking must obtain the information needed to verify Article 4 conditions under Royal Decree 216/1999 and directly inform the worker of risks and measures, particularly emergencies. It cannot permit work without evidence of compliance. During the assignment it is responsible for execution conditions affecting safety and health. Information exchange continues when tasks or exposures change; it does not end when a folder is delivered.
Actual induction and changes after recruitment
Selection ends before prevention does. On joining, a person needs to know who supervises them, what they may do, which tasks require authorisation and how to report a difficulty or emergency. Information must be understandable: a signature in an unfamiliar language does not prove learning. Workplace checks should establish that equipment and measures are available and the planned supervision actually exists.
If another task is assigned, review assessment, training and information, together with health surveillance appropriate to new risks. For agency work, that change must be communicated between the user undertaking and temporary work agency so they can fulfil their respective duties. An earlier selection outcome is not indefinite permission for different work. Operational restrictions reach work organisers with necessary detail, without disclosing diagnoses.
Audit the process and address failures
An audit should follow a case from the staffing request to the first task: requirements received, checks performed, outstanding actions, information delivered and the decision to start. Distinguish not verified, training required and requirement not met. These labels describe a file; they must not become diagnoses or broad judgements about a person’s abilities. The evidence should identify what remains unresolved and who must act.
Where training is missing or work differs from what was planned, correct the situation before continuing exposure. Improperly shared health information requires the relevant data-protection response. Responsibility is assessed against each actor’s duties and conduct; an agency is not automatically criminally liable for every accident. Necessary evidence should be retained with justified access and retention periods, avoiding indiscriminate duplicated files that spread sensitive information.
Hypothetical example: recruitment for maintenance
A business asks a placement agency to find a general maintenance worker. The applicant has relevant experience, but the client later adds equipment tasks requiring specific preparation. It also asks the agency to obtain a medical history to rule out risks. The initial file cannot confirm training for the new tasks, and the recruiter lacks clinical competence to determine medical fitness.
The response is to specify the job, review professional requirements and arrange outstanding training through the responsible party. Health questions follow the occupational health-surveillance system and its safeguards, without handing diagnoses to the recruiter. The hiring employer retains its responsibility for safe induction. If the arrangement were temporary agency work, its specific verification sequence would additionally apply. This hypothetical example describes no actual case and does not establish that the person is medically unfit.
Quality indicators and the connection with Sabentis
Suggested measures include vacancies with defined preventive requirements, starters with completed checks, training outstanding before the task and role changes communicated on time. Review unauthorised information access and barriers identified in selection as well. These are management proposals: percentages do not replace case-specific duties or authorise exposure without measures. A low administrative delay is useful only when the underlying checks remain meaningful.
In organisations using Sabentis, document follow-up can be organised according to actually available and configured functions, separating administrative, preventive and healthcare access. A visual file status should show what was checked and by whom, rather than automatically issuing clinical fitness. Useful integration connects the requirement with the job and outstanding action. Sources were checked on 8 November 2026; other countries’ regimes require their own review.
Frequently asked questions
Can a placement agency declare someone medically fit?
Not by virtue of being an intermediary. Medical assessment belongs to competent healthcare personnel under the occupational health-surveillance framework applicable to the work.
Are placement agencies and temporary work agencies the same?
No. A placement agency intermediates; a temporary work agency employs people for assignment to a user undertaking. One entity may perform different activities but must identify its capacity in each case.
Must diagnoses be handed to the employer to demonstrate fitness?
Occupational health surveillance distinguishes clinical information from the fitness conclusions and preventive measures provided to the employer. Participation in recruitment does not provide general access to diagnoses.
Is an earlier course or certificate enough to start work?
Its relevance to the actual job, risks and equipment must be verified along with other requirements. In temporary agency work, the user undertaking cannot allow work to start without evidence that the legally specified conditions are satisfied.
