to tell Matt Hancock what happens if you don't come into work or school because you have a sniffle?

[chomalungma]

He is surprised by people who go to work (pre pandemic) if they have a sniffle or are feeling a bit run down because they should be at home and not spread any illness. He would like to use the diagnostic capacity build up to test for other illnesses.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55061543

I know what happens at some work places if you are off everytime you have a sniffle. Your sickness records gets investigated.

Same with schools. Does he have any idea how schools frown upon children taking time off?

"Why in Britain do we think it's acceptable to soldier on and go into work if you have flu symptoms or a runny nose, thus making your colleagues ill?

"I think that's something that is going to have to change.

"If you have, in future, flu-like symptoms, you should get a test for it and find out what's wrong with you, and if you need to stay at home to protect others, then you should stay at home.

"We are peculiarly unusual and outliers in soldiering on and still going to work, and it kind of being the culture that 'as long as you can get out of bed you still should get into work'. That should change

I mean, yes, ideally that should happen. But it can't and won't! I work in a school, I get a cold every few months and they last weeks! I couldn't possibly take that time off, it's unimaginable.

As for the children - I hate it when they are absent from my class. It means more work for me, trying to catch them up, especially if they missed something crucial or a sequenced piece of work eg. we are writing a story over a week.

Isn't that exactly what he's saying? That the culture of wanting or being expected to be in work, even when ill, needs to change?

Yep that's exactly what it sounded like to me.

"I want to have a change in the British way of doing things"

"Why in Britain do we think it's acceptable"

Clearly talking about our national culture. And does anybody actually disagree with that? It's a stupid culture isn't it.

"(pre Covid I'd often wfh if I had a cold but I'm a senior manage so I could - extend that to everyone)."

I don't agree that people should work from home if they have a cold, outside of Covid times.
If you have a small cold and feel OK, come in. If you have a bad cold and feel fatigued, take a day off sick.
If I'm too ill to work, I'm too ill to work from home.

" I need a sick note if I am likely to be off more than a day,"

Is this is in the UK? I don't understand if so, because it can take weeks or months to get a doctor's appointment.

Obviously we would like to stay at home if we have a cold etc. But this man's own NHS limits sickness for twice times a year, each time requiring an interview with a manager on return to work. Then the third time, you can look forward to an investigation. He needs to fix his own department first before putting the blame on the nation.

Maybe a selection of the people on here need to invite him round (after lockdown) and set out all the practical considerations that need to be taken into account to reform how sick employees are treated in the UK? I would suggest a thorough application of duct tape so he can't interrupt with any waffle, and then when the situation has been laid out (I would also suggest some simple Powerpoint slides as he is a wealthy Tory who will need the real lives of real people explaining in plain English) you remove the tape and ask him what he's going to do about it.

If everyone with a cold took a week off, he'd soon start complaining about how you can't get the staff these days and how people are slacking etc. They'll make any excuse to blame things on staff no matter what they do.

TonMoulin
Yes he is somehow putting all the responsibility on people rather than on the structures responsible for the situation ( companies and government).
Distracting everyone from the real issue of course.
Smoke ans mirrors.

He clearly knows about zero hours contracts. Therefore he is deliberately putting the blame on the people most fucking disadvantaged by his party's policies.

Just when I thought this sorry excuse of a human couldn't be any more repulsive he trots out utter bullocks, gaslighting the fuck out of the public.

This is a warning of how the govt are going to behave when covid rates are still going up despite Sanitisation Stations in every workplace or shop. ContainingThe hygiene products which incidentally made a few of his chums getting richer.

As if these alone will negate the spread of a virus which has caused so much suffering to billions, some indirect.

Matt Handcock is just another vile tentacle on this bloated, out of touch bunch of greedy fuckers of a govt who inexplicably get people to vote for them.

I'm actually going to have to get the long saved Pukka nighttime teabag out of the cupboard. He's made me that cross.

DS was off last term, with a sickness bug. 5 days in all, we kept the school up to date, we recently received a letter telling us that due to his sickness record, we now need a note from his doctor for every day off he has or face the £80 fine. So DS is now going to get sent in, regardless of how he feels as we can't afford it.

Although I am fairly sure, if it comes down to it, the school should be fine, it just pisses me off, then Hancock wonders why people go to work or school with various bugs

The BBC hardly help. They suggest you should only take time off when ill if you are "peculiar" (their headline). Of course no one wants to be thought "peculiar".

It was super fun in the NHS after being ill once in the last year before March, then obviously getting Covid-19 in March due the lack of the PPE and not testing any of the patients (because the government thought coronavirus was like flu), then not to be able to be ill again since March without an investigation. Lots of NHS soldiering on though... due to Matt Hancock's NHS's sickness policy.

@Sobeyondthehills

DS was off last term, with a sickness bug. 5 days in all, we kept the school up to date, we recently received a letter telling us that due to his sickness record, we now need a note from his doctor for every day off he has or face the £80 fine. So DS is now going to get sent in, regardless of how he feels as we can't afford it.

Although I am fairly sure, if it comes down to it, the school should be fine, it just pisses me off, then Hancock wonders why people go to work or school with various bugs

Yes, these things actually can all be traced back to the government. That's where the buck stops. The Dept for Education putting pressure on school's regarding attendance.

If the government wants a change of culture, it starts with them and their policies.

I don't know anyone who hasn't had at least one boss who thought you were guilty of faking illness until proven innocent.

Matt Hancock should know we are outliers. Amongst countries that have been or are in the EU, outliers in terms of low income, poverty and inequality, no doubt.

In a country where people such as Philip Green and Mike Ashley are allowed to do business.

Flu is quite different to a cold, I rarely agree with Hancock but I think he's right on this. I get really annoyed when people come to work, clearly I'll, and what a medal for it. I don't want people with illness in my workplace passing on germs. Invariably they end up being ill for longer than if they'd sensibly stayed in bed. I tried going back in a few days after having flu many years ago it didn't end well and I decided not to be a martyr in future.

Education is awful for pressuring people back to work, but actually has really good sickness provision in contracts.

Fat chance of anything changing, trying to call in sick at one of my previous jobs was a complete nightmare, they'd get the senior manager on the phone who would start giving you the third degree, you literally had to be in a hospital bed for them to believe you.

@hammeringinmyhead

I don't know anyone who hasn't had at least one boss who thought you were guilty of faking illness until proven innocent.

Me! Never had a problem with sick leave and never worked somewhere longer than temping where it was a disciplinary issue or where you had a limit of sick days to take.

It's like he's completely oblivious to his own party's policies for the last decade.

So he wants people who have a cold/cough/flu to not go to work and get an appointment for a test and stay at home until they are well again?

So he's going to make same day testing for all sorts of random winter sniffles easily available?

So he's going to make employers happy for everyone to not turn up to work randomly at least once or twice each winter?

So he's going to make sure no-one loses wages while they do this because a lot of people go to work with a cold/cough/flu because they cannot afford to lose money while being off ill.

And no-one's going to get disciplined?

And no-one's going to complain if children don't go to school because of this?

And employers are going to be happy when their employees can't come to work because their DC are off school because they're a bit ill?

Righty-o then.

I won't hold my breath.

@Dizzy1804

The BBC hardly help. They suggest you should only take time off when ill if you are "peculiar" (their headline). Of course no one wants to be thought "peculiar".

I must try that one next time I'm not feeling well. I can just imagine my manager's face!

" due to his sickness record, we now need a note from his doctor for every day off he has or face the £80 fine. "

How could they enforce this?

My employer expects us in with a cold or infection. Don't go in and you won't get paid. More than 5 days you"ll be disciplined

"More than 5 days you"ll be disciplined"

What's the legal justification for disciplining someone for being ill. I sort of get sickness policies where people who are constantly off sick are targeted - I suppose it's to stop malingering or to get rid of people whose health is genuinely bad, but they haven't got the legal protection of a chronic illness or disability. But what's the justification for disciplining someone for being ill once?

@Letseatgrandma

I presume they will be scrapping the ridiculous pupil attendance requirements in schools now then?!

Special assemblies and certificates for those with 100% attendance?
End of term outings for those with 100% attendance to the local fun fair?

I will be pleased to see the back of all that and look forward to the announcement from Gavin Williamson.

This is such a good point. My dd school does this too. I don’t understand why they want kids to come to school sick and spread bugs to even more children.

I was listening to him with my mouth hanging open.
I work in a project funded by Government.
My contract in work has great sick provision on paper. But how the job works makes it impossible to take proper sick leave.
We are strictly and regularly monitored on number of visits to vulnerable families and outcomes, and we are always short staffed due to the low paid stressful nature of the role.
Unless you physically can’t get up you go in.