Would you be off sick if you weren't being paid?

[MakeMineALarge1]

I work for the NHS, the sick package is very good, full pay for 6 months then half pay for another 6.

I know that its very stressful at the moment in acute care, sickness in our department is currently at 30% with up to 6 members of staff off per shift.

Lots of people citing stress etc, needing time out, and this is granted on full pay.

If you were self employed or hourly paid, would as people still be off with stress and still need "time out"

It seems a lot of threads on here start with "my anxiety" or I have PTSD or I am depressed. Is it too easy nowadays to ring your GP and be signed off on this basis?

Contractor here, I don't get paid if I'm off sick. Currently WFH, so I work through the sickness.

@debucnik

I would go one further and say yes people with sick pay take more sick leave. I know I've dragged myself to work many a time when physically or mentally unwell because I simply cany afford to not get paid.

I disagree, my company offers full sick pay and very few people abuse the system (those people often leave/dismissed after a few months)

Just because you can drag yourself into work, doesn't mean you should. To prevent burn out in high stress jobs like mine (NHS) then you do have to look after yourself. I'm not suggesting taking the piss, but you're not going to win any medals for dragging yourself in when you feel like shit.

There should be a change, yes.
If I ruled the world, I would make it a law that employers have to pay you full pay for the first week (self certification period). After that, maybe a combination of half-pay and SSP for a period, and then for a genuine long term sickness some other form of support.

It’s not that easy to get 6 months full pay and 6 half pay in the NHS. You have to have worked for over 5 years continuously in an NHS job. And long term absence usually triggers formal sickness reviews with HR so they can dismiss you on capability grounds if they feel you’re not going to return for months or have suspicions.

GPs don’t issue fit notes without a good reason. They might sign you off for a couple of weeks with stress, longer if your MH or physical health problems are severe. But there’s a big focus on getting back to work these days.

Most NHS trusts use the Bradford score, so a few absences (even short ones) will trigger the formal review process. Even if you have medical evidence and a long term condition. Only a few illnesses are exempt, think they’re cancer, stroke, planned surgery and any pregnancy-related illness.

NHS jobs are often very challenging mentally and physically. And nobody wants employees coming in with a sick bug or other contagious illness and spreading it to clinically vulnerable patients. Catching illnesses from patients is also an occupational hazard!

Depends on how much money I was making. I save a significant chunk every month right now, so I'd be happy to spend some of that money on days off sick.
I've always had roles where I could adequately work from home, so I only take genuine sick days if I needed to do something that involves being out of my home (appointments or "mental health days").

Would people who are living "paycheck-to-paycheck" take make the same choice? No, but the difference is how much they need the money, not the fact that they're paying. A certain amount of sick days are factored into wages.

Genuine long-term sickness would get you dismissed at my workplace. I’ve seen it happen several times. It’s very sad.

Its a bit of a self perpetuating circle in the NHS. Someone goes off long term sick, this makes the workplace shortstaffed, which puts pressure on the current staff in work which makes their back problems/anxiety/health condition worse, which then means in turn they go off sick. etc etc.

30% sick rate is horrendous. No workplace can work at that capacity of sick rate. The problem is that it is now so bad within the NHS that there is no easy solution.

DH's company offer a bonus for those who don't take a sick day. It just seems to result in people coming to work and doing a crap job because they should be at home.
They had to change it from yearly bonus to a 6 monthly because they found that if someone had to take a day off at the beginning of the year they'd be more likely to take more sick days as they'd already lost the bonus.

This is a daft question. You're basically asking 'would you take time off if it was to your financial detriment?' (more than it is already as sick pay is lower than usual pay)

The answer to that would depend on someone's financial situation, job security, and how sick they are. The reason we have sick pay is because you need to rest when you're sick, even if you are poor.

I'm self-employed - as a result never ever off sick during a contract -

I've also pushed myself to the edge of a nervous breakdown and severe burnout twice because of that feeling that you can never take time off... was then unable to work as a result (totally unpaid as am self-employed) for 6 months.

There's probably a balance to be struck but I think it's actually a good think that people can say 'do you know what, I'm really struggling'.

I work in the NHS. I currently should be off with mental health concerns but as my department is currently under restructure and I'm hoping to progress up a band in the next year or two I can't afford to show the weakness. There are groups within my department with appalling sickness records and it's demoralising how they abuse the system whilst the rest of us work so hard to keep going.

Im not surprised people who work for the NHS , Need time out.

Dont blame them at all

@PoorCatto it isn't weakness, please don't think of it like that.
I know exactly what you mean about how work will see it though.

@daisypond

Genuine long-term sickness would get you dismissed at my workplace. I’ve seen it happen several times. It’s very sad.

But how else do you expect businesses to handle it? Sometimes, an employee develops some sort of illness which means they will never be able to return to work. Or that even with adjustments, they won't be able to work. Should they just stay on the sick forever?

In answer to your question, if I was sick enough that I couldn't operate my laptop to do my office based job (which I'm currently doing WFH) then yes I would take sick leave.

If I just had a cold but was based in the office I would request WFH rather than sick leave

Feeling like I do today - yes I would! I feel awful and very sorry for myself !! 🤧🤒🤧🤒

@KingsleyShacklebolt
I agree with you. Businesses can’t handle having people absent for a long term, even if they’re only getting SSP. I was just saying it’s very sad.

I currently am in a contract where I get paid full sick pay.

However, I have been in contracts through employment agencies where you got nothing at all, just SSP and even that I think kicks in after 7 days being off sick, so I rarely took a day off sick, unless very ill, but I did save up a bank of money for this very purpose.

I've also worked in companies though where you do get paid full sick pay, in fact one company (large accountants) they treated their sick pay allowance (approx 10 days or similar) almost like holiday pay and used it up. They were really annoyed when it got reduced from more days to less as they thought they were entitled to it! I also worked in a company a long time ago where I was very depressed for 6 months or so and took the time off (about a day a week maybe less) as sick. But my manager and other staff knew about this and in fact when I asked the office manager re my HR sickness records (small/medium company) she told me there was nothing there (I'd worked there 6 years) to flag up I was taking off more sick days than I was allowed.

Even now, when I get paid full sick pay, I'd only take it off if I was really properly sick, vomiting etc or couldn't work due to aches/pains of a bad cold/flu.

No, I'm not off sick, and would only be so if I really couldn't go in.

If you were self employed or hourly paid, would as people still be off with stress and still need "time out"

Yes, I'm sure they would. It might not be so obvious, as you don't need an excuse note for your boss if your boss is yourself!

It seems a lot of threads on here start with "my anxiety" or I have PTSD or I am depressed. Is it too easy nowadays to ring your GP and be signed off on this basis?

No, it's not easy at all; and not everyone with anxiety or PTSD is off work in any case! I think that what is happening is that the pandemic has (a) caused a lot of anxiety and PTSD; (b) means that some (unfortunately not all) workplaces are more willing to allow time off with physical illnesses, so as to prevent possible spread of Covid. I am sure that some people do take advantage of the latter and invent excuses - 'I was pinged'; 'I had a cough and thought it might be Covid' - but better than coming to work when ill and giving everyone else Covid or even 'just' flu.

I sent 20 years working in a 'public sector well paid sick pay job'. Whilst most people were honest, there were definitely a lot who took the piss, literally taking the maximum they could, until they stopped being paid and then they seemed to get better.

In one job, I remember a person saying "I've used all my holiday, but I've still got my sick to take"

I think the difficult thing is that Mental health is very subjective, so it's really hard to prove and very easy assume someone is faking or exaggerating.

Physical health issues tend to have a one size fits all recovery plan. eg if you break a bone, you pop in plaster until its healed, some people might need a resetting or a longer healing time, but on the whole you can see it happening.

With mental health everyones trigger is different, which makes it impossible to treat universally and therefore impossible to judge how to help.

I really hope I've not come across as dismissing MH issues with these comments as I know first hand how traumatic and debilitating it can be, so that is not the intention. But with everyone always talking about how bad mental health services are, (playing devices advocate slightly here) is it even possible to actually provide the services when everyones mental health is so different?

I'm not sure why you're connecting the frequency of people posting discussing those conditions with the idea that GPs easily give sick notes. Lots of people with those conditions work and people without them can end up off sick with stress. There isn't much relationship there.

Yes, with good sick pay, some will take the piss and it can be hard to deal, some will be more likely to take sick leave than they would otherwise but they are still managing that as responsibly as they can and there will still be those who work when they really shouldn't.

I can see why some would want better ways to deal with the first group, but many are more concerned that there are so many who have no option but to be in that group even when they aren't self employed. It's put people at risk and contributes to the high under and unemployment of disabled people.

Personally, it would have been better for me to be able to have significant sick leave to recover than what actually happened was having to leave and watch my career go down in flames and watching myself go out of date. That in some ways made rebuilding back up healthwise harder being in the rut that's common for many that go through that. You can end up feeling like it doesn't matter if you get well enough again. I'm in the midst of a flare up, I'm having a lot of muscle weakness this week, and it has fucked with my moods as I struggle not to get pulled under by the feeling I'll never 'properly' work again.

In my experience of working in the NHS, people absolutely take advantage of the six months fully paid. There is no way people people would take time off otherwise. I worked in the new Zealand NHS equivalent for four years and for the first five sick days you got no pay at all.

I'm off sick currently without pay.

@bloodywhitecat

DH has cancer, he doesn't get sick pay but he has had no choice but to take days off for chemo and surgery. Not being paid at a time when he has a terminal diagnosis has made life very difficult indeed.

I may be telling you something you already know, in which case apologies, but it may be worth looking into Continuing Health Care funding?