Application for work with medical check-ups

A doctor who is to carry out medical check-ups at workplaces must have the right competence for the task.

Those who have foreign qualifications and wish to have them assessed must send personal information, certificates and other documentation to the Swedish Work Environment Authority via email.

What are medical check-ups?

By medical check-up is meant a medical measure that is intended to be of support in work environment management. This can encompass biological exposure check-ups, examination by a doctor, health examinations, and fitness for duty assessments.

Those with competence to carry out medical examinations with fitness for duty assessments are:

  • licensed medical practitioners with special competence in occupational medicine,  occupational and environmental medicine, or the equivalent
  • licensed medical practitioners with specialist competence within occupational health care
  • licensed medical practitioner who has passed the National Institute for Working Life occupational physician or equivalent training, and who has at least the equivalent of two years of full time service within civil occupational health care or the corresponding service within the military forces. It is the employer offering medical check-ups who is responsible for the doctor having the correct competence.

Those who wish to work as specialist doctors in Sweden must have a Swedish medical licence, and Swedish proof of specialist competence. The professional title is protected. This means that only someone who has proof of special competence may call themselves a specialist in their specialist area. In Sweden, the National Board of Health and Welfare is responsible for this assessment of the doctor’s qualifications. You can apply by paying a fee, filling in an application form and sending it, together with the required documents, to the National Board of Health and Welfare.

This means that the question about whether a foreign doctor’s competence corresponds to the Swedish specialties of occupational and work environment medicine or occupational medicine will, even in the future, be assessed by the National Board of Health and Welfare. That which we can assess are the applicants who maintain that they have experience and competence equivalent to ’licensed medical practitioner who, with a pass result, has undergone the National Institute for Working Life occupational physician training or equivalent training, and who has at least the equivalent of two years of service within civil occupational healthcare or the corresponding service within the military forces’. 

The Swedish Work Environment Authority can only assess your qualifications if you obtained them

  • in the EU/EEA
  • in another country, but you have had them approved in another EU/EEA country.

How to apply

  • The application must contain

    • an educational certificate issued to you, showing the course content, for example in Word or as a pdf.
    • your name
    • your date of birth or national ID number
    • a postal address or telephone number for you
    • if required for your profession, you must also send a certificate from an employer or similar that shows that you have the correct experience, for example in pdf format.

      Send the application to

      arbetsmiljoverket@av.se

    .

  • We will acknowledge within one month at the latest that we have received your application. If necessary, we will ask you for additional information.

  • We will forward your application to the Swedish Council for Higher Education, which will assess whether your education is adequate.

    We will send you notification by email within three months of your application being complete.

    1. You have the right to appeal our decision
      The decision letter will set out how to do so. Set out why you think we should change our decision. Send your appeal to the Swedish Work Environment Authority.

    2. We will decide whether to reassess your application
      We will first decide whether to reassess your application. If we do so and decide to change our initial decision, you will receive notification by email.

    3. If we do not reassess the application, we will send the appeal to a court of law
      The Swedish Work Environment Authority will send the appeal to a court of law, that is to say the local administrative court. We will also send your application and all other documents in your case.

    4. The court will take a decision
      The court will take account of all the documents in the case and take a decision. You will receive notification directly from the court.

Last updated 2022-11-09