employment law help needed

[mowgli]

my missus has been told that she has been off sick too many times in the last year..

1. flu
2. twisted her knee at work, couldn't walk
3. asthma.

she is a nurse, and cares for the elderly in a local nhs hospital working nights.
flu is an occupational hazard as the hospital is at approx 26degC all year round, so bugs love the place..

they are planning to put her in front of an 'ill health' panel & have advised her to notify her union rep.

they appear to be under the belief that they can discipline her & this will go on her record.

now my missus has always tried to go to work in the worst weather conditions, when she has been truly ill, and will even go in to cover other staff off sick... she is 100% commited to the task, yet it makes her ill, and she has been refused a drop in hours on a regular basis by her manager...

so, is this something they can legally do to her? she is petrified that she could lose her job over it, and is in a right state..

opinions please

[Southie]

Is this any help Mike? >LINK (http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/e_sickness_at_work.pdf)< :)

[db_1.2]

They can do it yeh, you do actually get a limit of how many sick days you can have.

The problem is, people take these days off, but what they don't realise is it costs businesses millions, if not billions a year nationally.

Also, while I'm here, get a health plan, health insurance, injury insurance. Worth every penny, they start from around £10 a month.

[Tanya.]

They can do it yeh, you do actually get a limit of how many sick days you can have.

The problem is, people take these days off, but what they don't realise is it costs businesses millions, if not billions a year nationally.

Also, while I'm here, get a health plan, health insurance, injury insurance. Worth every penny, they start from around £10 a month.
Luke has an income insurance thing which is fab but it only starts if he has 13 weeks in a row off. So whilst it's great if he's seriously ill, it sucks when it comes to just odd days of sickness. :(

Anyway...

Yes it is something they can do. At my first ever job I was off quite a bit thanks to my asthma flaring up and then getting an abcess on my gum. Despite having sick notes and them actually contacting my doctor and dentist it still got taken to a tribunal. I'd apparently gone over my quota of sick days that you're given for the year.
All I got was a stern talking too and told that if I was well enough to go to the doctors I was well enough to come into work for a few hours and it was left at that.
My contract with them was never renewed but I don't think my sick days had anything to do with that as they got rid of everyone they'd employed at the same time.


If she's had sick notes then hopefully that will go in her favour. I hope it gets sorted and she gets nothing more then a smack on the hand! :)

She also needs to mention the fact that she has attempted to make things better by asking for reduced hours but constantly keeps getting denied :)

[mowgli]

she is a nurse... they get a great health plan already.. so great that the nhs is trying stunts like this.....there are people at her work who have taken sick days to get their washing machine fixed......or because they have been too drunk (and on facebook) i had to steal her car keys to stop her trying to go to work on 2 of the above occasions, she hates being off sick.

[Dayle_]

Like many companies at the moment it look as though they are trying to make cuts or force people into taking voluntary redundancy.

Speak to the union rep straight away although similar thing happened to my Mrs and unite the union turned out to be a load of crap because they never once turned up to her meetings.

She was with RBS for 5 years and never had a sick day. She had 4 weeks off with work related stress and depression after she was re-located to a different team in which her boss was a right bitch. On her return she was given a back to work and a final written warning and a great deal of pressure as she was told if she made any other errors no matter how big or small she would be dismissed (training on the new team was 2 days and should be 3-4 weeks). As you can imagine this didn't help her situation and she ended up leaving. She doesn't like a fuss so didn't take it to a unfair dismissal tribunal which she should have done. After this the same thing happened to many of her friends who also work for RBS. Its a way of trying to bully people to leave or take a possible redundancy.

They have also just done similar thing at my place of work and targeted specifically people who have had time off sick.

Who is her union?

[Southie]

Another >LINK (http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/e_time_off_work.pdf)< to try :d

[mowgli]

royal college of nursing. RCN, who are most of the time the nhs's yes men...

[DAFTJOHN]

my missus has been told that she has been off sick too many times in the last year..

1. flu
2. twisted her knee at work, couldn't walk
3. asthma.

she is a nurse, and cares for the elderly in a local nhs hospital working nights.
flu is an occupational hazard as the hospital is at approx 26degC all year round, so bugs love the place..

they are planning to put her in front of an 'ill health' panel & have advised her to notify her union rep.

they appear to be under the belief that they can discipline her & this will go on her record.

now my missus has always tried to go to work in the worst weather conditions, when she has been truly ill, and will even go in to cover other staff off sick... she is 100% commited to the task, yet it makes her ill, and she has been refused a drop in hours on a regular basis by her manager...

so, is this something they can legally do to her? she is petrified that she could lose her job over it, and is in a right state..

opinions please

It's just process used to catch the folk trying to scam the system. They will know that your missus is genuine.

My g/f's mum had it happen to her here in Scotland with the NHS. 3 sicknesses which was for fairly serious ops - all covered by doctors letters. She took her Union rep along and highlighted that this was causing her distress - mainly due to folk being able to have one instance of illness i.e. 3 months off and not having anyone take them to task. They advised her it was a formality and that they have these processes imposed upon them and they have to follow them through unfortunately.

Good luck with it

[mowgli]

thats what i was hoping would happen...

[Adam]

The exact same kind of thing happens at my place, and yeah they are perfectly entitled to take things further if an employee has numerous days off sick. So i was told anyway.

[Hobbit]

You'll probably find her name has been flagged up due to a sickness calculator called the "Bradford Factor" and when she gets in and expalins her case it will be dropped. :)

[Jeff16v]

Mowgli, I'm NHS as well and they set triggers for sickness and as long as you go over them they can pursue you legitimately as they have spend many 100s of thousands getting the rules written by employment lawyers. That said, that doesn’t mean that the process won’t get gets balls up as that’s what normally happens to the real p*sstakers and they get away with it.
I have personally known two members of staff that have been fighting various forms of cancer for a number of years and HR and occupational health pursued them over the sickness policy. One was eventually too ill to work and died a little while later, ironically as the NHS wouldn’t fund her cancer drugs. The other was treated at the hospital she worked at and died at 37 a few weeks ago.

The NHS cares little for the people that work in it. iirc it takes at least 3 formal hearings before she can be struck off and they have to give her a fixed period after each instance to improve her sickness, as long as she doesn’t breach one of them, then they return to the start.

[Jack]

Yeah, most/all civil service depts have an automatic 14(or so)-day flag thing where it pings HR to look into it. I had the same when I was off for 6 months, which was annoying as it pinged my manager every time I took a day off for a blood test or scan lol

If your wife has medical notes then its no bother, they'll just see that and push everything to one side. If not, they may get a bit shirty about it - check to see whats in her terms of employment as it may mention something in there about maximum paid self-certified sick absence. Certainly get the union on board though, and if the local rep is no good, keep going up the chain until you hit someone thats useful.



Also, while I'm here, get a health plan, health insurance, injury insurance. Worth every penny, they start from around £10 a month.
Its worth having, especially if you have a history of illness or known problems. Mine paid me each time I was in hospital either overnight or for day surgery, helped beef up my supply of DVDs whilst I was stuck on a drip lol But they also cover half my costs when I go for dental checkups, eye tests etc. They'll also provide assistance for loss of earnings on long term sick, although that wasn't an issue for me.

[db_1.2]

That's the same as mine Jack, lucky really cus one of my wisdom teeth broke Monday :(

As far as I'm aware, it's not legal to sack someone without fair warning anyway, so I'm sure, and hope all will be fine for you both.

[mowgli]

sacking someone was made almost impossible under the last govt.

[db_1.2]

sacking someone was made almost impossible under the last govt.

That is my understanding also. However, they still have the power to chose whatever hours you do, what role you play etc. They can and will force you to leave. Happens all the time at the company we sub for.