HELP In A&e and worried about job

[Silvercoconut]

Can anyone help with some strategies?
I'd like to be able to advise my daughter who is currently in A&e since nine o'clock this evening with terrible cellulitis in her hand and arm caused by a bug bite. She went to the out of hours doctor service because she's very swollen red and hot.

She's supposed to be in work at 11 a.m..
Just last week she had a disciplinary because over the past nine months she has had three sick days. Once was flu, once she was also unable to work due to trigeminal neuralgia for which she had a doctors certificate. And 3 weeks ago she had switched some medications, the dose was increased and she was suffering terrible nausea and vomiting.
She threw up whilst at work and was told to go home.

She's now sitting in the hospital having terrible anxiety about work, that she will lose her job I'm not sure they can do that but I don't know what to suggest to her.
I don't think she should make her way home she's in terrible pain also, she really does need IV antibiotics.

I'm entitled currently (it goes up with each year of service) to 8 weeks full and 8 weeks half pay for sickness. We also use the Bradford Factor, so we'd have to have a meeting if I had 3 absences in a rolling 12 month period. The first meeting isn't a disciplinary though, it's a chat / investigation to see the reasons for the absences and if there's an underlying issue.

The U.K. is generally a lot better than the US for paid sickness absence. Someone having cancer treatment or similar would often be entitled to months off sick. My employer pays for five months on full pay for sick leave.

However, frequent short-term absences do get flagged up as a concern. Sometimes it’s genuine, as in this case, sometimes people have a bad year. I had one year with ten days off in total over four instances, which was just bad luck. A compassionate employer checks there’s nothing else going on and keeps an eye on the situation. But there are people who take the mickey and phone in sick with a hangover, particularly noticeable on Mondays! This approach discourages that.

Are her migraines at a level where it would class as a disability under the equality act?
Question for ACAS on Monday, perhaps, but a meeting might allow your DD to have her condition formally recorded, and then the employer would need to take that into consideration.

As PP have said, at this stage it is about paperwork, and the aim is often to stop people taking short term absence, they didn’t actually need.

its only 12 hours, does this mean than your DD still at school or college? If it’s making her miserable, she could resign, citing exams and still include the job on her CV.

Obviously your DD needs to prioritise her health and stay put in A&E to get the treatment she needs. She can call the shop as soon as it opens and let them know what is happening so they have time to get someone else in by 11am.

Sickness policies aren't about whether or not an employee is lying. Businesses are allowed to select employees according to their capabilities. If someone has such precarious health that they are regularly too unwell to work then there are a lot of jobs that they are unsuitable for. There are still jobs they can do but they need flexible working arrangements so that they can work whej they are well enough and not work when unwell without detriment to the business. Customer facing retail roles on shift patterns are not suitable for this. The disciplinary process is going to establish whether your DD is likely to have ongoing health issues at this frequency, in which case it would not be discriminatory to manage her out of the role, or whether it's just been bad luck and will be ok from now (they will also consider whether there's any malingwring or fakery but will conclude that there isn't)

Worrying about this won't help your daughter. She needs to concentrate on getting well again and then work out whether to focus on proving to her employers that this run of bad luck is all in the past or wherher to seek a different kind of employment without set shift times.

OP, it is scandalous that your daughter is being disciplined over 3 episodes of sickness.
Cellulitis is a very serious condition and needs urgent attention to treat and recover. She will also need to rest her arm afterwards to prevent complications.
Her work should be provided with a copy of her hospital attendance and she needs to get a GP certificate to sign her off.
Her company will be breaking the law if she is sacked.
I hope your daughter feels better and recovers soon.

If she’s only on a 12 hour contract does it really matter? Cellulitis is nasty and her health is much more important.

Is she working another job/studying as well?

There is literally nothing she can do about it and worrying will not do any good (apart from potentially make her more poorly).

They have to follow the rules as it’s just policy but they will understand that it’s not intentional.

Sometimes people just have a run of bad luck.
Tell her to focus on getting better and then deal with that later.

My son had cellulitis a few years ago, and it’s really horrible. It definitely isn’t the kind of thing that gets better on its own, and if the hospital are suggesting IV antibiotics then sorry to be blunt, there is a concern about blood infection and sepsis. At this this stage her recovery is far more important than any job.

I’m really not trying to scare you or catastrophise, as she is in the right place and I’m sure will be completely fine with treatment. If she has not yet spoken to work, I would suggest bypassing the fact it started with an insect bite, as they’ll probably minimise things, and lead with the fact that she is hooked up to IV antibiotics for cellulitis

She should have been told the out come at the end of the meeting. It’s standard practice to have a meeting after 3 absences in a year. It’s to check to make sure there is no pattern (like every Saturday for example) or if there is an ongoing issue they need to be aware of.

It will probably go to a stage 2, she will have another meeting after 2 or 3 more absences. I honestly wouldn’t worry about it. Unless she is in a probation period, then they would have reasonable grounds to not continue her employment.

Are you sure it was a disciplinary and not a absence review meeting? Work places have sickness policies to follow. Most work places have sickness trigger points (4 days in 12 months, 8 days or more in one sickness period etc - each place sets their own trigger points). It sounds as if it may of been an absence review meeting where they decide if she is on a stage 1/2/3 and different stages mean different things. Stage 1 normally means absence monitoring. stage 2 a verbal warning, stage 3 a written warning and so on. I actually think it is illegal to move straight to disciplinary without following their policy. These type of policies are meant to look for patterns in sickness such as the person is off on pay day every month or every Monday with a hangover. I think the first step is to get a hold of their sickness and absence policy and find out what their policy is regarding sickness, what the meeting was and what stage of absence she is on in accordance with their policy. When she calls in today, ask her to ask them to send her over a copy of their sickness policy.

Maybe get some advice from acas too.

She has genuine reason to be off. Maybe going forward, it is best to become familiar with the sickness policy in any workplace she is in. Hope she feels better soon.

For my employer there are three different procedures-
sickness absence a return to work interview after every sickness period, after three you move to a different level

this would lead to incapacity procedures- employer agrees I am ill but now considering am I capable- level of sickness and is there any impact when at work, eg tiredness meaning not coping. Will look
at adjustments- this can mean dismissal

disciplinary - misconduct and would mean that the do not think sickness is genuine and may add other conduct - can lead to dismissal - including gross misconduct

This is all very normal for a low paid, part-time position. I also wonder if all the people saying “the law needs to change it’s so unfair” would be happy to have an employee off sick multiple times in a short period of time with no ability to say “it’s not working out”.

But why is a meeting necessary? It's absolute nonsense. If you are sick you are sick, end of. I can understand if someone takes every Monday off your employer might be a bit suspicious, otherwise surely they trust their employees. I've never encountered anything like this.

Is it an actual disciplinary though? My work has a sickness policy, discussions with the employee depending on how many periods of sickness in a rolling year. All companies need to have a policy or people would do whatever they want! She might see it as a disciplinary but actually it’s just part of the sickness procedure.

It's standard practice. And, actually, employers have a duty of care to their employees. If there's something going on and they can make life easier for that employee, then they should be establishing that and taking reasonable steps for accommodating adjustments.

It’s absolutely standard in many jobs - and it’s not about not believing your employee, but making sure they’re okay and fit for work, and assessing whether they may need extra support (such as reduced hours, further time off etc).

I have never once worked a job where “return to work” meetings didn’t exist.

She's 30, though I don't see the relevance - because she's working part time?

Yes she's looking for another job and has been for a while.
Anyway she had her intravenous antibiotics, a prescription for more antibiotics plus prednisolone and a letter from the hospital, fingers crossed.
Hand looks like an inflated latex glove 😓

The age is relevant because of how much she needs the job, if she’s 16 and doing it for spends or a grown up working part time around childcare /schools is very different so people will answer differently…..
Glad she’s all sorted

She saw an actual doctor at the out of hours GP service, the whole hand and arm was puffed up and red, hot and hard.
She was told to go and given a letter to take to A& E as in the doctors opinion she needed intravenous therapy. The hospital obviously agreed.

Thank you to everyone who has given advice! Very interesting........

Some sickness policy are ridiculous. I work for a large supermarket and you only can have 3 separate sicknesses before a disciplinary but you could have 3 months off and that count as one. Some people might be ill on the Monday feel guilty about being off so come in on the Tuesday realise that they came back too early and had the Wednesday off too, that counts as 2 so you might as well take a whole week off to make sure you are better.

It’s good practice to do a return to work meeting. The manager needs to check they are well enough to be back at work (you do get people coming back too soon which is counter-productive especially if they had something infectious), whether anything at work has affected the sickness (eg headaches related to screen use) and whether they need extra support to return. Which could be a phased return over a few days or weeks if they’re recovering from an illness or an operation or a referral to occupational health to get advice about reasonable adjustments.

A disciplinary or a stage 1 meeting to discuss the reasons for absence?

It’s far more disruptive to have someone off for 3 lots of short term absence in a few months, meaning you’re never sure if they’re going to be there to do the work or not, than to have someone off for three months, when cover can be planned and put in place.

Disciplinary for 3rd absence. They don't even consider the reason for the absence. My DD had a disciplinary for her 3rd absence for chicken pox. Obviously you can't go to work with that. I don't think the absence should be counted if signed off by a Dr.

It's the absence policy in every place I've worked in.
Return to work interview after absence 1 & 2, investigation after any subsequent ones & if they aren't linked or related to pregnancy or disability then verbal warning, written, final written.

The bar is quite high for dismissal though.

Imagine the pressure that would put the NHS especially GPs under though