@Kitkat151
It’s really bad how so many people on here don’t get sick pay....it shocks me ( I’m NHS ) ..... it must be such a worry , the thought of being ill and not being able to work.....I had 8 months off sick last year..... and the last thing I needed to worry about was not getting paid.
This. ^ People who get paid for being off sick (these days,) are very fortunate. I am, but my DH isn't. There are a shocking amount of people who get less than £100 a week if they're off sick. Even if they're off for MONTHS. The financial impact can be devastating.
As a pp said, it's very common in retail, hospitality, and care, and in many factories, and blue-collar jobs... I am shocked that so many people thought every person got full sick pay when they're off. I know MANY people who don't.
As I said earlier in the thread, my DH was off work for 10 weeks a few years ago, after an operation, and it took us about a year and a half to recover financially, as he lost almost £2000 in wages, just from those 10 weeks. I was a low earner then (as I worked part time coz we had young kids,) and our outgoings were higher.
Fortunately, I now have a better paid job, our outgoings are lower, and the kids have left home, so we can comfortably afford for him to have time off if he needs it. But yeah, WE have been in the OP's position, and it stinks!
I know several couples who lost their home and went under, because their DH was off on sick leave for 4 to 6 months, and he lost about £6000, to £7000 in wages. They literally never recovered from it.
One man in one of the couples I know was actually laid off about a month after he came back to work, and only got about £2,000 redundancy money. Didn't last 5 minutes. That couple is now on benefits with their full rent being paid, and has been for 5 years. If they had had more financial help, (when he was off sick,) they would both still have their home, and he may still have a job.
The whole system needs overhauling, people need to have at LEAST two thirds of their normal pay when they are off sick (preferably all of it,) and zero hours contracts need to be limited to under 18s! The vast majority of jobs should offer 24 hours a week or more. Guaranteed every week. (And the ones that aren't 24 hours a week, should be 18 hours a week minimum.) And these hours should be written into the employment contract, so they cannot be dropped, and the employee knows where they stand financially, and can't get screwed around with having to pay back tax credits and housing benefit and suchlike...
I saw 3 jobs advertised in a major supermarket last week. 5 hours a week each. 5 fucking hours. (With extra hours when needed!) That's so they can call you up when they need extra staff, and you will get 20-25 hours that week, and when it's not busy, BACK down to 5 hours a week you go.
No-one can live on 5 hours pay, so people end up claiming tax credits and housing benefits, and then get a few extra hours a few weeks later, and end up having to pay back all the tax credits and housing benefits they were given! 
It's a shitshow, and when I was younger and first working (1980s,) this would NEVER have happened. I worked in a factory in the mid 1980s, and they tried to cut the hours from 40 a week to 32 to save money, and everyone went on strike. The way employees are treated these days, by MANY companies is fucking disgusting.
And I agree with the posters on here saying the people who are saying 'you should automatically save' and 'why does he not get another (better) job' are smug and rude and clueless! FFS, I know people in their TWENTIES, with University degrees - from bloody good Universities - who can't get a bastard job on a checkout in Tesco. How the fuck do you think the OP's DH can just walk out of his job and into something BETTER?!
Fucking twits.