Sick days when travelling to hospital

[Namechangefail123]

I have a hospital appointment on a Tuesday but would need to travel 6+ hours to get to said hospital (so have to travel the day before) would that sick leave or annual leave?

each company/manager makes their own decision

I don't think the appointment counts as sick leave. Where I work it would be paid leave for the medical appointment and if there was major travel involved we'd talk about that.

In my org we have a Special Leave policy and id expect to use that.

That wouldn’t be sick leave for me either.
would come under ‘time off for medical appointments’

That wouldn’t be sick leave or annual leave for me either. It would be time off for medical appointments, including the journey there and back, if done in work time.

Not sick leave, as you aren’t sick.
Either unpaid leave for us, as time off for appointments isn’t paid, or holiday.

Time off for appointments, travel included

k with manager/supv re your work's policy as it varies.

Paid time off for appointments, travel
included

Well, do you need to use working hours for all six hours of travel time? Or can you delay until later on in the day - and only use a few hours.

It would differ depending on where I worked, but then I often wasn't given the mandated time off for appointments as per our contracts as my manager was an asshole.

If it was me making the decision it would be time off for the hospital day definitely, and I would think of a work around for the travel time, but I would expect you to be flexible with the travel time too.

Why is it at a hospital six hours away? Was that your choice?

I’d probably leave work at 3pm the previous day to travel and classify it as time off for medical appointments.

Some conditions have a ‘specialist service’ in the NHS, I attend such a service in Cambridge. It is the only service for the condition for the whole of the UK. This may be similar.

I'd have to use annual leave or make the time back up. I've an x-ray on Tuesday and will be working over the rest of the week to make the time up.

The only hospital with a specialist in what I need to is 6+ hours away. I'm happy to the Monday as annual leave though (but I would assume the whole of Tuesday would definitely count as sick leave/paid time off). I would have to check what does the company policy say about hospital appointments

The only hospital with a specialist in what I need to is 6+ hours away.

Oh, I would definitely give you the time off for that, as long as you were reasonable with the day before.

I was wondering if it was a choose and book situation where you had decided to go six hours and if there was any specific reason why.

Good luck with the appointment.

a colleague recently had to have a day and a half off for a medical procedure (we started at the same time and both only been there for a short period of time), she’s been quite open about it all when we pop out for breaks etc.
i asked her if she’s had to take sick leave or book holiday and she said it was covered as paid leave, not marked down as sick and not taken out of annual leave. It’s a very generous policy and lots of people have talked about things like this as a big perk, they’re very reasonable.

quite a large number of people live in areas where the nearest big hospital is at least a days travel away.