Time off for pregnancy related appointments

[Ozgirl75]

I’d like some advice - I have an employee who works 3 days a week. She is pregnant. Would it be reasonable for us to request that she has her pregnancy related planned appointments on her days off if necessary?
I don’t live in the U.K. so I don’t know how easy it is to request that appointments take place on a Tuesday or a Thursday - here in Australia you can request when you have appointments but is it fairly easy to do this in the U.K. or not really?
I can’t tell whether it’s taking the piss a bit that she has two days a week off and yet for the past couple of months she’s had a pregnancy related appointment during her working days at least once a week.

That's a lot of appointments, is everything OK with her and the baby?

It is quite difficult to rearrange appointments. For example my midwife was only at my surgery one day per week from 9-3 so I couldn't even do early or late appointments. Scan times were slightly better but I didn't try to move them very often.

It seems like quite a lot of appointments, but she is entitled to have time off for them. I found with my midwife she was only in the doctors for appointments one or two days of the week, so I didn't get a huge amount of choice.

I can’t choose the day of the week that my appointments are held on. The midwife only comes to my doctors surgery one day a week from 8-2, and my consultant only holds his clinic on a Wednesday afternoon. Both of which are on the 3 days that work.

It's a difficult one. But it isn't really possible always to request specific days. It would be difficult to refuse as she is legally entitled to them.

Ok fair enough, that’s good to know. I did wonder if it was just that she had very little choice of the days. Thank you!

Currently pregnant , and I can't choose the day of the week I have my appointment on. And I have had to have a weekly appointment the past few weeks as my pregnancy has progressed and I've needed more frequent checks.

I'm entitled to the time off from work, but I do feel bad about it and have used annual leave instead when I can but that's probably just me.

Ours are only Weds/Thu as that's when midwife clinics run.

I’d never refuse by the way, it was only hoping that she could do them on the days she doesn’t work, but it seems that the system is too fixed for that.

I try to schedule my apts on non working days but there often isn't a choice I.e. with scans and consultant appointments I get a letter through the post and get what I'm given and my midwife is only at my drs surgery one day a week.
I'm having a high risk pregnancy that's monitored quite a lot and I'm still not having anywhere near an appointment a week!

For scans (and I’ve had extra ones for health reasons), the NHS just sends a letter with the date and time. You can ring to change it, but it’s not guaranteed you’ll get another appointment at the time you need eg before you hit 14 weeks and are too late for the screening tests, so you pretty much need to take what you get.
My midwife appointments are slightly more flexible, and she’ll offer me a couple of dates/times, but it’s definitely not a case of me being able to choose when is convenient.
If she’s seeing her GP for anything, I imagine she’ll also have to be taking what she’s given at the moment.

If she’s having an appointment every week then there’s potentially something very seriously wrong with her and the baby. I would be looking to make sure her pregnancy risk assessment is up to date and fit for purpose too!

OP- are you her boss but you live in Australia and the pregnant person lives/works in the UK??? Do you have a UK based HR team to give you precise info about UK law around pregnancy related appointments? If not, ACAS might be useful to call or look at for guidance:
www.acas.org.uk/

Having lived/worked in both countries for many years, health services in the UK are FAR more stretched and I doubt she would have much, if any choice on when her appointments are. Some areas are better than others, but the vast majority are severely lacking in midwives and you are lucky to get an appointment at all- quote often, these are via phone. How far along is she? Weekly appointments seem FAR too often- unless she is extremely high risk.

I 'think' you can ask for evidence of these appointments to check if they are legit. I would think that if someone needs weekly appointments, possibly HR could ask for an occupational health assessment. IF someone was needing weekly checks, I'd be worried about whether they should be working at all. ACAS might be able to answer that though. It would normally be reasonable to come to work before or after the appointment on a working day and not take an entire day off for a 15min check up!

Very unusual for weekly medical appointments either something is wrong with pregnancy or she is taking the mick.

It’s incredibly unusual to have weekly appointments, has she mentioned being a high risk pregnancy?

It depends on the appointment and the local area I guess. I was able to choose most my my midwife appointments but not my hospital ones. Near the end it ramped up a lot and I couldn't really choose either much as they had to be at set points for monitoring. My employer asked to see my maternity folder which had all my appointments listed on the back but they only did this as they had another person who they believed was taking the mick.

She hasn’t mentioned a high risk pregnancy and I don’t think all the appointments are scans, she mentions other Dr appts, blood tests etc.
Yes I’m in Aus and I own a business in the U.K. That’s not particularly unusual

Another person with experience of Medicare and the NHS. It’s a very inflexible system in the UK - you can only reschedule once and you still don’t get any say over when the appointment is.

However weekly appointments is very often, mine are about once a month & that’s for someone being scanned more often than most.

I 'think' you can ask for evidence of these appointments to check if they are legit.

You can. But tbh I’m not sure what proof can be provided. I have NHS letters for my scans, but I have a midwife appointment this Wednesday that was arranged over the phone and I have no proof it is happening at all.

Anyway, it’s fine - I only wanted to know how flexible medical appointments are in the U.K. and now I have the answer to that. Thank you.

It’s no drama - she’s only with us for a couple more months and we can cover this. I don’t think she’s planning to come back after the baby although of course will be welcome and entitled to and her job will be waiting for her.

@SickAndTiredAgain

I 'think' you can ask for evidence of these appointments to check if they are legit.

You can. But tbh I’m not sure what proof can be provided. I have NHS letters for my scans, but I have a midwife appointment this Wednesday that was arranged over the phone and I have no proof it is happening at all.

They should write something in your notes proof after it's happened? Not in the actual notes but on one of the pages. Or that might just be my area.

Unless she's very high risk she certainly won't be seeing a doctor, she'll be seeing a midwife. I don't remember having anything more than 1 blood test at my booking in appointment and only went 4 times I think during my whole pregnancy.
Unless she's high risk I sense she is pulling you a fast one.

I wasn't particularly high risk in my last pregnancy but saw a consultant and a midwife because I'd had a previous section and was having another and because I had hyperemesis. I was also classed as a "geriatric" mother as I was 35 midway through the pregnancy.

I used to have consultant one week to do a medication review for my antisickness meds and check my weight, they used to do BP, urine dip, etc and if I was showing up dehydrated then I'd go on a fluids and antiemetics drip for a bit.

The following week would be midwife, fortnightly appointments from 24wks.

Next week would be consultant again.

And so on.

You can't really get antenatal appointments unless you need them (other than at the assessment unit if you have any immediate concerns but that's sit and wait rather than scheduled) so if she has weekly appointments then she obviously has a clinical need for them.

Oh, and from week 11 to around week 19 I had a weekly appointment with the antenatal physio because everything growing out pressure on an old spinal injury.

I’m not going to be an arse about it. She’s either having a bad pregnancy in which case she needs the appointments or she hates her job (I don’t think she does!) and is skiving off which I can’t do much about and she’s heading off in a couple of months anyway, so either way I’ll leave her to it.