Commercial diver requirements: the medical, eyesight and age limit

What "requirements" actually means

Search for commercial diver requirements and you get lists. Most of them blur four separate things, set by four different authorities, that fail you in four different ways.

The first is a diving qualification the regulator in your market recognises. In Great Britain this is a hard list: HSE publishes a List of Approved Diving Qualifications dated 1 January 2026, issued under regulation 14(1) of the Diving at Work Regulations 1997 and signed by the Chief Inspector of Diving. If your certificate is not on it, you are not qualified to dive at work in Britain, however good your training was. The list is organised by class — offshore closed bell and saturation, surface supplied to 50 metres, inshore SCUBA, shellfish, scientific, media, police, military — and names the foreign certificates it accepts, from Australia, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands and others, with a footnote requiring an HSE Top-up for Spanish qualifications.

The second is competence: logged work, assessed by employers and certification bodies. The third is the medical. The fourth is the stack of adjacent certificates — first aid, oxygen administration, diver medic, offshore survival — which expire on their own clocks and will stop you mobilising just as effectively as an unfit medical.

Education is almost never the obstacle people assume. HSE's approved list sets no academic requirement at all. The American scheme does: the ADCI Consensus Standards require an entry-level tender/diver to be a high school graduate or equivalent and to have completed a formal course conforming to ANSI/ACDE-01-2015, with at least 625 documented hours of instruction. That is the ceiling of the academic demand in this trade. If you are weighing up how to train as a commercial diver, the paperwork you need is vocational, not scholastic.

What follows is what the medical standards actually say, scheme by scheme, with the numbers. It is information, not an assessment: in every system described here the decision belongs to one named, approved doctor who has examined you.

Who is allowed to examine you, and why it matters more than the clinic

The most common wasted journey in this trade is a diving medical done by the wrong doctor. A certificate is worth only what the regulator in your market says it is worth, and every scheme restricts the examiner.

In Great Britain, only an Approved Medical Examiner of Divers (AMED) may carry out the statutory examination. Approval requires GMC registration and a licence to practise, a recognised occupational medicine qualification to at least diploma level, training in diving medicine, and suitable premises and calibrated equipment. The initial diving medicine course runs up to five days; a refresher of at least two days must be repeated at least once every five years. A first approval lasts one year, then normally five after review, and for renewal the doctor must submit anonymised records for at least three divers, which an HSE Medical Adviser audits against MA1. HSE neither employs AMEDs nor sets their fees: the diver or employer must find one and agree payment directly. The current list is published as a spreadsheet from HSE's medical requirements pages.

In Australia, ADAS requires an occupational dive medical complying with AS/NZS 2299.1, carried out by a doctor specifically trained in underwater medicine — the Occupational Diving Doctor requirement in Appendix K of the standard. ADAS points candidates to the South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society's searchable Diving Doctors List and to IMCA. A medical done overseas is accepted only if it is in English, issued by a hyperbaric doctor, and states that the holder has been assessed for medical fitness to dive in accordance with AS/NZS 2299.1:2015. That wording matters; a certificate without it can be rejected.

In Canada, the Diver Certification Board of Canada maintains a list of approved physicians who have shown evidence of a Level 1 hyperbaric medicine course, with training acceptable to CUHMA or UHMS, and also accepts medicals conducted to CSA Z275.2 by American board-certified hyperbaric doctors and by doctors on the UHMS Diving Medical Examiner list. Its own page carries a warning worth reading twice: not all regulators will recognise all of the physicians it lists, and divers should confirm acceptability with the relevant regulator or training establishment before booking. The list was last updated on 25 September 2026.

In the United States, ADCI requires a licensed physician qualified to perform commercial diver medical examinations and does not recognise non-physicians for the purpose; Divers Institute of Technology in Seattle requires its students' dive physicals to be performed by a UHMS- or ADCI-certified physician. In continental Europe, the EDTC publishes competence standards for physicians of occupational diving companies (January 2019), while DMAC 29 (revision 3, March 2019) sets the criteria for approving diving medicine courses.

What happens at the examination, and which forms exist

The UK initial medical is the best documented of the schemes, because MA1 prints the test list. Appendix 2 separates what is routine from what is done only when clinically indicated, and the first examination from the annual one.

Source: HSE, MA1 Medical examination and assessment of working divers, Appendix 2, revision 5, published 5 June 2023.

Two things there surprise people. There is no routine ECG and no routine chest X-ray in the British scheme, and no routine blood test. The American scheme is the opposite: the publicly available ADCI sixth edition makes a chest X-ray, pulmonary function test, audiogram, full blood count, urinalysis and a PPD items for both the initial and the annual examination, tests colour vision at the initial only, and makes a 12-lead ECG optional at the initial examination but required annually from the age of 35. A pregnancy test is recommended before saturation diving. The same person can face a 45-minute consultation in one country and half a day of imaging and bloods in another.

Before a first British examination there is a step the schools rarely flag. MA1 requires the candidate to complete the medical questionnaire and ask their GP to countersign it, and the AMED must not issue a certificate before seeing it. DDRC Healthcare in Plymouth states the consequence plainly: if this is your first HSE medical or your current one has expired, you need the GP questionnaire, it may take several weeks, your GP may charge for it, and you should not book the medical without it.

Findings go onto form MA2. HSE confirmed the detail in a letter to the Senior Coroner for Berkshire dated 2 June 2026, written in response to a Prevention of Future Deaths report following the death of Kevin John Lapwood at a recreational diving project in February 2022: MA2 is the certificate of medical fitness, completed by the AMED at each assessment, a copy may be given to the diver, and where the finding is unfit or restricted the AMED must record the reasons on page two and explain them to the diver, including the right of appeal.

On the forms generally: HSE publishes MA1 free, with the medical questionnaire and the Diver's Medical Record as its appendices 1 and 3, but the MA2 certificate is not on its diving resources page — that page carries only the contractor notification form OSDDC 1 and the competence certificate replacement form ADC2. MA2 is the AMED's form. Australia's AS/NZS 2299.1:2015 Appendix L questionnaire and certificate is linked from the ADAS medical fitness page, DCBC publishes a Certificate of Medical Fitness filed as the 2019 divers' medical form, and the EDTC provides standard examination forms as a downloadable archive. IMCA's recommended practice D 061 includes a questionnaire completed by the candidate and their GP with no examination required — a contractor's screening document, not a statutory certificate. For the examination item by item, we have a separate piece on what the commercial diving medical certificate assesses and how often.

The numbers: weight, waist and exercise capacity

These are the criteria you can actually change, and they are published.

Source: HSE, MA1, paragraphs 48–51, 58 (Table 1), 65–71 and Appendix 4, revision 5, June 2023.

Ireland's guidance of November 2019, which is based on MA1, uses the same bands with a one-point difference at the top: working divers should reach a VO₂ max of at least 45 ml/kg/min, roughly 13 METs, measured with the Chester Step Test, with 40 to 44 triggering an individual risk assessment. Ireland names the test protocol where Britain does not.

The American threshold is set differently again. ADCI specifies a BMI below 28 for the initial evaluation, treats a BMI above 30 as clinical obesity and disqualifying, and at the annual evaluation calls for risk factor modification above 28 and consideration of functional stress testing. A candidate with a BMI of 29 can therefore hold a British certificate and fail an American entry standard. Schools add their own bars on top: Divers Institute of Technology states that a BMI above 32.5 prevents applicants from starting its programme — stricter than HSE's advice threshold, looser than ADCI's initial 28. If you are training towards the water work rather than the paperwork, our guide to preparing for the physical test covers what the exercise element demands.

The European standard takes a different view of weight entirely. The EDTC's second edition, published in late 2024, gives no BMI cut-off: it treats BMI, body fat percentage and waist circumference as indicators and says a BMI above 35 with an excessive waist should prompt a check with the family doctor. It does set haematological minimums the others do not — haemoglobin of 12 g/dl for men and 10.5 g/dl for women, and a haematocrit minimum of 0.4.

Asthma and diabetes: where the schemes genuinely disagree

Asthma is not an automatic bar in Britain. MA1 allows a fit finding where asthma is well controlled on low-dose inhaled corticosteroids, alone or with a long-acting beta-2 agonist, with no symptoms, normal spirometry, and an exercise challenge showing less than a 15% fall in peak expiratory flow or FEV₁. It is unfit without further assessment where the diver needs more than low-dose ICS plus LABA, has been admitted to hospital for an exacerbation in the last three months, or has unstable asthma. MA1 also sets stand-down rules for an otherwise fit asthmatic diver: do not dive if relief medication was needed in the 48 hours before the dive, if peak flow is more than 10% below normal best in that period, or if diurnal peak flow variation exceeded 20% on any day in the preceding week.

The EDTC reaches a similar place by a different route, using GINA control categories and the lower limit of normal from the GLI reference equations rather than a fixed FEV₁/FVC ratio: absolutely unfit where control is rated partly controlled or uncontrolled or lung function is below the lower limit of normal, and a relative contraindication needing specialist review where control is good at GINA step 1 or 2. Its stand-down trigger is a diurnal peak flow variation above 10%, where HSE's is 20%. If you dive in both regions, work to the stricter number. ADAS bars severe asthma requiring oral steroids or hospital admission and treats mild asthma as a relative contraindication. ADCI has no asthma-specific item; it appears as a history question, with the lung item covering significant obstructive or restrictive function.

Diabetes is where divergence has the sharpest practical consequence. ADCI accepts diabetes controlled only by diet and exercise with an HbA1c below 7.0, and lists all forms of insulin and all oral hypoglycaemic medications among its disqualifying medications. In effect, under the American standard, treated diabetes ends a diving career. HSE takes it case by case: the first assessment must be by a diving medical specialist, the treating clinician must review the diver at least annually with evidence of satisfactory control presented at each medical, episodes from poor control are likely to be disqualifying, and complications such as retinopathy or nephropathy are disqualifying. MA1 adds that a diabetic diver is unlikely to be fit for saturation diving, and gives no HbA1c figure. The EDTC position is that diabetes is no longer an automatic disqualification but that someone diagnosed before training generally should not become a professional diver; its disqualifying list is the long-term complications, from atherosclerosis and cardiomyopathy to retinal changes, nephropathy and neuropathy.

The same diver, same control, same HbA1c, can be certifiable in one scheme and unemployable in another. That is a reason to get specialist advice before you spend money on a course.

Ears, sinuses and eyes: the questions people actually type

Ear and sinus problems end more careers than any single dramatic diagnosis, because they are the one system tested on every dive. The common thread is equalisation.

HSE requires intact tympanic membranes with normal eustachian tube function, and lists as contraindications recurrent otitis externa, active middle ear infection, stapedectomy, unresolved middle ear barotrauma, Ménière's disease and other inner ear pathology, tinnitus that interferes with underwater safety, and recurrent unresolved facial palsy. Bony exostoses in the canal do not prevent diving unless they cause recurrent infection or stop the canal being examined. Acute sinus infection is a contraindication until resolved; treated obstruction and successfully treated chronic rhinosinusitis are acceptable. ADCI lists chronic inability to equalise sinus and middle ear pressure among its absolute bars, and adds pressure-equalising tubes in place, active otitis media, vestibular disease and recurrent or persistent vertigo. The EDTC requires both ears to equalise and the eardrum to be intact and not atrophic, notes that about 95% of traumatic perforations heal, and specifies that attic or posterior marginal perforations contraindicate diving.

Sources: HSE MA1, paragraphs 109–125 (June 2023); ADCI International Consensus Standards 6.5, sections 2.3.6 and 2.4.2 items 11–14, 18, 56 (record of changes 23 January 2025); EDTC Medical Assessment for Work Under Pressure, 2nd edition (2024).

6/9 is the metric Snellen notation; the same line is written 20/30 in the imperial notation used in the United States, which makes HSE's acuity bar marginally tighter than ADCI's 20/40. Both allow correction. Neither requires unaided vision. The claim that commercial diving demands perfect eyesight does not survive contact with either document. Dental health also gets its own section in MA1, which most applicants do not expect: cavities may be linked to barotrauma, and unattached dentures must be removed for diving.

What disqualifies you outright

ADCI publishes the clearest list of absolute bars of any scheme, and it is the list most American schools paraphrase on their admissions pages.

Source: ADCI International Consensus Standards, Edition 6.5, section 2.3.6, record of changes dated 23 January 2025. Eleven entries in total. Some of the qualifying wording in the left-hand column is our own shorthand for a longer entry, not the standard's phrasing.

The British equivalents are scattered through MA1 by body system and framed as thresholds rather than diagnoses. On seizures: any seizure is a contraindication except febrile convulsions before the age of five; a diver seizure-free for ten years without treatment may be fit; after a single unexplained seizure, five years seizure-free without treatment may be fit. A mild head injury, meaning 30 minutes or less of unconsciousness or post-traumatic amnesia, means temporary unfitness for at least four weeks, with risk rising above 30 minutes of amnesia. Stroke or transient ischaemic attack requires at least twelve months without further problems. Immersion pulmonary oedema requires specialist assessment and return is unlikely. Sickle cell anaemia and thalassaemia major are contraindications, while sickle cell trait carriers may be fit with specialist consultation — the same position ADAS takes.

On mental health, MA1 disqualifies symptomatic schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and recurrent depression from all diving; psychotropic medication is a contraindication for saturation diving and needs specialist consultation for other diving; a resolved single episode of depression, self-harm, anxiety or isolated psychosis may be compatible with diving after six months with no further episodes and off psychotropic medication; agoraphobia and claustrophobia are contraindications while most simple specific phobias are acceptable if they do not affect in-water safety; ADHD is assessed individually; and substance misuse is incompatible with diving, with a lengthy period of stability, for example twelve months off the substance, required. The pressures behind several of those entries are real and under-discussed — we cover them in stress and mental health for the offshore diver.

ADAS is the most explicit of the three on cardiac structure, barring ischaemic heart disease, any dysrhythmia that might cause incapacity in water, any cardiomyopathy, atrial or ventricular septal defects, aortic or mitral valve stenosis, coarctation, and varicose veins with circulatory impairment. It also bars severe inflammatory bowel disease with systemic effects, gallbladder pathology, pancreatitis, severe exfoliative skin disorders, severe motion sickness, and migraine with visual, motor or sensory disturbance. Pregnancy is a contraindication in all four schemes.

Medication: the list that catches people out

Applicants prepare for the diagnoses and forget the prescriptions. ADCI publishes a numbered list of disqualifying medications, and several entries catch people who consider themselves entirely healthy.

Source: ADCI International Consensus Standards, Edition 6.5, section 2.4.5, record of changes dated 23 January 2025.

Beta blockers and diuretics are the two that surprise fit people in their thirties who take one tablet for blood pressure. HSE handles medication as a judgement rather than a list: assess the underlying condition, symptom control, functional impairment, the drug's effects in the diving environment, how long the diver has taken it, side effects, the consequences of stopping it, and the type of diving planned. That is more flexible, and it is also why a British AMED may want a letter from your prescriber before deciding. IMCA's recommended practice D 061, published October 2018 and reissued as revision 0.1 in May 2024, covers the same ground for contractors.

Age, education and the 18 question

This is the requirement people get most wrong, in both directions. There is no upper age limit for professional diving in any scheme examined here.

MA1 paragraph 36 is one sentence: the Diving at Work Regulations do not specify lower or upper age limits for professional diving, but the minimum age for working offshore is 18. Ireland says the same and adds that divers aged 16 or 17 need a specific risk assessment and that greater-than-average fitness is normally expected as age increases. ADAS states that divers must be at least 18 under AS/NZS 2299.1, with no upper limit provided health and fitness are sufficient. ADCI sets no minimum or maximum age where all medical standards are met, but does not issue commercial diver cards to anyone under 18. Divers Institute of Technology requires applicants to be 18 or older and states there is no cut-off age to attend.

What changes with age is the testing, not the eligibility. ADCI makes a 12-lead ECG, optional at the initial examination, a required annual item from the age of 35. The EDTC shortens the interval between in-depth examinations, usually from 40 or 45. Nobody sets a retirement number. The limit in practice is the exercise standard and the accumulated wear of the job — see chronic injuries and a diver's working life.

DIT's published entry list is representative of the American schools: 18 or older, a high school diploma or GED, proficiency in spoken and written English, the ability to swim 400 metres unassisted, the ability to obtain a TWIC card, and the dive physical. No prior diving experience is required.

How often you re-certify, and the clocks running alongside

This comparison is hard to find anywhere else, because each body publishes only its own interval.

Sources: HSE MA1 paragraphs 21–32 (June 2023); HSE, First aid for diving; HSA Ireland, The Medical Examination and Assessment of Divers at Work (November 2019); ADCI Consensus Standards 6.5, sections 2.1, 2.3.1, 3.1.2 and 3.1.3; ADAS, Medical Fitness; EDTC, Medical Assessment for Work Under Pressure, 2nd edition, chapter 2 (2024); DCBC policy QP-7.10 on the renewal of certificates, issue 02 revision 01, 28 August 2025.

The European interval is the outlier and the most misreported. A young, healthy European commercial diver does not necessarily sit a full examination every year — the in-depth examination can be five-yearly, with a shorter annual clinical review in between. That is a materially different burden from the British and American annual full medical.

The adjacent certificates are what strand people. Under the British Approved Codes of Practice, every member of an offshore dive team must be competent in first aid and hold a current first aid qualification, and at least one team member other than the diver in the water must hold a diver medic qualification — and that person should not be the supervisor, who must stay in direct control of the operation. First aid and oxygen administration run three years. The diver medic qualification runs two, and must be renewed in the final three months before expiry or within eight weeks after it; miss that window and you re-sit. If you are considering the diver medic route, that rule is the detail worth writing in your diary. DMAC's guidance underpins much of this, including DMAC 15 revision 5 (December 2021) on medical equipment at an offshore dive site and DMAC 28 revision 3 (January 2024) on emergency medical care for divers in saturation — see what happens if a diver falls ill inside saturation.

After an injury or a bend: the return-to-diving clock

Almost no careers page explains what happens after something goes wrong, which is strange, because this is the medical question working divers actually ask. ADCI publishes recommended return-to-duty intervals. They are recommendations, and every case but the simplest must be cleared by a qualified diving medical examiner before return.

Source: ADCI International Consensus Standards, Edition 6.5, section 2.4.10, record of changes dated 23 January 2025. Persistent neurological deficits after a diving incident are generally disqualifying.

Britain approaches the same problem through a trigger rather than a timetable. MA1 requires a return-to-work assessment after a respiratory, cardiac, neurological or otological disorder, including decompression illness, or after any other condition or injury that kept the diver off work for more than 14 days. That assessment does not replace the annual medical — you need both. Return after decompression illness requires specialist consultation, and the reference point is DMAC 13, Fitness to return to diving after decompression illness, revision 3, December 2022. Ireland uses the same 14-day trigger. ADCI requires re-examination after a diving injury or illness needing hospitalisation, and after any non-diving injury or illness needing prescription medication, surgery or hospitalisation.

What it costs, and the step nobody budgets for

Published prices for diving medicals are scarce, and that is itself a finding worth stating rather than papering over with an invented range.

The clearest published figure we could find is American: Divers Institute of Technology charges US$850 for the required dive physical, performed by a UHMS- or ADCI-certified physician, with the option for students to arrange their own. DIT also states that if a student fails the physical after enrolling, all money paid to the school is refunded — a small detail that tells you how often it happens.

In Great Britain there is no published fee and there cannot be a single one, because HSE neither employs AMEDs nor sets their charges. Anyone quoting a definitive UK price for an HSE diving medical is quoting one clinic. Two cost items are more reliable than the headline fee. First, the GP questionnaire: for a first British medical or a lapsed one, the questionnaire must be countersigned by your GP before the AMED will see you, which DDRC warns may take several weeks and may carry a GP fee. It is the most commonly missed step and the one most likely to cost you a course start date. Second, further tests: ADAS states plainly that the cost of an Australian occupational dive medical varies with any additional tests, and suggests seeing a GP beforehand to check for problems that could cause a failure — cheap insurance against an expensive wasted examination.

Certification fees are separate and are published. In Canada, DCBC's rates effective 1 June 2023 run from CAD 120 for a five-year Hyperbaric Chamber Operator certificate to CAD 850 for an Offshore Diving Safety Specialist, with an Unrestricted Surface Supplied Diver at CAD 360 and a Closed Bell Diver at CAD 600; initial fees are halved for a graduate's first two-year certificate. The fees page was last modified 20 January 2025.

If you are costing training from scratch, our breakdown of what a commercial diving course costs in Chile itemises the same categories in a market where figures are published, and the school directory lists 34 schools — of which, as our October 2026 audit found, only five teach saturation.

If you are found unfit: the appeal almost nobody uses

Britain has a statutory appeal, it is free to lodge, and most divers do not know it exists.

If an AMED declares you unfit, or fit with restrictions, you may write to HSE's Principal Medical Adviser within 28 days of the decision. Include your personal and employment details, the date of the examination and the doctor's name, the decision and any summary of reasons, why you disagree, and supporting evidence including recent medical evidence. The Principal Medical Adviser reviews it and may, with your consent, contact you and the AMED for clarification.

HSE rejects appeals it considers frivolous or vexatious and without foundation, and where a condition clearly disqualifies or restricts, the Principal Medical Adviser sets out an initial view and lets you respond before confirming it. Where the appeal proceeds, the papers go with your consent to an independent medical expert, who may decide a hearing is appropriate — and you can request one, bringing a friend, a colleague or your own medical adviser. The expert makes a recommendation and an HSE Director takes the final decision. HSE pays the medical experts' fees; you pay your own travel for an oral hearing. MA1 requires the AMED to tell you about this right, and HSE's June 2026 letter to the Berkshire coroner reiterated that the reasons must be recorded on page two of the MA2 and explained to you. If that conversation did not happen, that is itself worth raising.

What the internet gets wrong about commercial diving requirements

"OSHA requires an annual commercial diving medical." It does not. OSHA's commercial diving operations standard, 29 CFR 1910 subpart T, contains no requirement for a medical examination, medical clearance or fitness certification of any kind. What it requires is that the employer inquire into each dive team member's current state of physical fitness before making assignments, that dive planning assess fitness including any impairment known to the employer, that a member not dive during a known temporary impairment likely to affect safety, that the diver's physical condition be checked after each dive, and that any diving-related injury or illness requiring 24 hours or more of hospitalisation be recorded and kept for five years. Appendix A lists conditions that may restrict or limit hyperbaric exposure but does not require anyone to screen for them. The annual American diving physical comes from the ADCI Consensus Standards and from employer and client contracts, not from federal law. That distinction matters when a company tells you a requirement is legally mandatory.

"A dive medical is a dive medical." No. The recreational medical sold alongside open-water courses is a different examination to a different standard. In Australia the occupational examination is the AS/NZS 2299.1 one, with the Appendix L questionnaire and certificate and an Appendix K occupational diving doctor, and ADAS will not accept an overseas certificate unless it states compliance with AS/NZS 2299.1:2015. In Britain only an AMED's examination satisfies the Diving at Work Regulations. Wherever you are booking — Port Douglas, Cairns, Canberra, Aberdeen — ask the clinic in writing which standard it certifies to and whether the examining doctor is on the relevant occupational list.

"Asthma, one eye or a hearing loss means never." Each has a published pathway. Well-controlled asthma on low-dose inhaled corticosteroids with a negative exercise challenge can be fit under MA1. ADCI states that monocular vision is not necessarily disqualifying and that monaural hearing is not disqualifying. Colour blindness does not disqualify. What ends careers is chronic inability to equalise, uncontrolled disease, and medication that cannot safely be stopped.

"There is an age limit." Not at the top. Four separate schemes say so explicitly.

"Fail the medical and that is the end of it." Britain gives you 28 days and pays the independent expert. Restrictions are also not the same as unfitness: MA1 allows a certificate restricted by duration, type and remoteness of diving, and by depth, time and frequency, and requires any restriction to be justified. The EDTC formalises this further with purpose codes A to E, exposure levels 0 to III, and five restriction groups covering senses, decompression and pressure, medical conditions, equipment and personnel, and geography. A restricted certificate may still be a working certificate.

"The medical is the hard part." For most applicants the medical is the cheapest and fastest of the four gates. The expensive ones are the approved qualification, the logged work needed to progress, and the realistic odds of reaching the deep end of the trade: our October 2026 audit found that only 17 of 876 commercial diving companies — 1.9% — run saturation at all. Pass the medical and you have cleared a gate, not arrived. If you are at the start, how to get into commercial diving with no experience sets out the order to do things in.

One last thing we could not source, said plainly: we found no primary document stating a fixed validity period for the Canadian diver's medical certificate. DCBC's renewal policy QP-7.10 is a competency policy built on CSA Z275.4 and does not address the medical. If you are certifying in Canada, ask DCBC and your provincial regulator directly rather than trusting a figure from a blog, including this one.

Sources

1. HSE — MA1, Medical examination and assessment of working divers (revision 5), published 5 June 2023, consulted 8 October 2026.
2. HSE — MA1 publication page, updated 6 June 2023, consulted 8 October 2026.
3. HSE — Certificate of medical fitness to dive, consulted 8 October 2026.
4. HSE — Medical requirements for diving at work, page updated 2 December 2025, consulted 8 October 2026.
5. HSE — Medical appeal under the Diving at Work Regulations 1997, consulted 8 October 2026.
6. HSE — Becoming an Approved Medical Examiner of Divers (AMED), consulted 8 October 2026.
7. HSE — List of Approved Diving Qualifications, dated 1 January 2026, consulted 8 October 2026.
8. HSE — First aid requirements for diving at work, consulted 8 October 2026.
9. HSE — Diving training and qualifications, consulted 8 October 2026.
10. HSE — Diving resources, forms and publications, consulted 8 October 2026.
11. HSE — Diving at work, consulted 8 October 2026.
12. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary — Response from the Health and Safety Executive to the Senior Coroner for Berkshire (inquest touching the death of Kevin John Lapwood), letter dated 2 June 2026, consulted 8 October 2026.
13. Health and Safety Authority (Ireland) — The Medical Examination and Assessment of Divers at Work, November 2019, consulted 8 October 2026.
14. Association of Diving Contractors International — International Consensus Standards for Commercial Diving and Underwater Operations, Edition 6.5, record of changes dated 23 January 2025, consulted 8 October 2026.
15. Association of Diving Contractors International — home and Safety & Education, consulted 8 October 2026.
16. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations — 29 CFR Part 1910 Subpart T, Commercial Diving Operations, consulted 8 October 2026.
17. European Diving Technology Committee — Medical Assessment for Work Under Pressure (Fitness to Dive standard), 2nd edition, updated 10 December 2024, consulted 8 October 2026.
18. European Diving Technology Committee — Documents, consulted 8 October 2026.
19. Diving Medical Advisory Committee — Guidance notes index, consulted 8 October 2026.
20. IMCA — D 061, Guidance on health, fitness and medical issues in diving operations, October 2018, revision 0.1 May 2024, consulted 8 October 2026.
21. Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme — Medical Fitness, consulted 8 October 2026.
22. Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme — home, consulted 8 October 2026.
23. ADAS — AS/NZS 2299.1:2015 Appendix L dive medical forms, consulted 8 October 2026.
24. South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society — Diving Doctors List, consulted 8 October 2026.
25. Diver Certification Board of Canada — Physicians, list updated 25 September 2026, consulted 8 October 2026.
26. Diver Certification Board of Canada — First Certificate, consulted 8 October 2026.
27. Diver Certification Board of Canada — Certificates, consulted 8 October 2026.
28. Diver Certification Board of Canada — Fees, rates effective 1 June 2023, page modified 20 January 2025, consulted 8 October 2026.
29. Diver Certification Board of Canada — QP-7.10, Policy on the Renewal of DCBC Certificates, issue 02 revision 01, 28 August 2025, consulted 8 October 2026.
30. Diver Certification Board of Canada — FAQs, consulted 8 October 2026.
31. Diver Certification Board of Canada — home, consulted 8 October 2026.
32. Divers Institute of Technology — Requirements, consulted 8 October 2026.
33. Divers Institute of Technology — Disqualifying Medical Conditions, consulted 8 October 2026.
34. Divers Institute of Technology — Admissions, consulted 8 October 2026.
35. DDRC Healthcare — Occupational medicals, consulted 8 October 2026.

Frequently asked questions