To take sick leave for this?

[LiIo]

Hi,

I have been riddled with tonsillitis for my entire life. Unfortunately the NHS are unwilling to refer me to an ENT. I’ve been doing research and have found a facility on Poland that can do the procedure privately using a laser (so much easier recovery time). It’s also significantly cheaper than getting it done in the UK (talking a couple of thousand difference).

Am I able to take time off work for this or would it need to be an annual leave thing?

Thanks!

You would need to ask your employer.

"Able to" and "unreasonable to" are different things...

If it's over 3 days then where I work, you'd need a doctor's note to get sick leave agreed; so if you can get a note then clearly that's the way to go.

If not then I wouldn't be able to, I would speak to my manager to try to sort something out but they might not agree it. I don't think there is an unreasonable in that case.

If you don't need a sick note then you're able to but personally I'd still agree it with my manager beforehand ...

Where I work, this would be annual leave for the day you spent travelling to the clinic, and then sick leave after that for your recovery.

I see no reason why not, you can take sick leave for planned surgery.

If you need to extra time off because of the location then the travel time should strictly be unpaid leave or holiday but you can probably book surgery for a Monday and travel over the weekend and travel back while you are still recovering.

I suspect your employer will be fairly accomodating given that this will reduce your future absence so I would be quite upfront about your plans.

If you have a sensible manager who understands a one off 3 day absence is better than multiple absence from tonsillitis, they might grant it as sick leave (I would although I guess it's not strictly following the rules).

Why not

You could take sick leave to catch up on live island.

It's self certify for a certain periods anyway.