Time off for cancer

[Angels1111]

What is your work policy like regarding time off for cancer?

I always assumed one would go off sick from the day of diagnosis to the day the doctor announces you're in remission.

But, I have a friend who goes into work when she can between treatments because "she doesn't want to run out of sick days". She's a nurse, on her feet all day, and powers through with energy drinks and breakroom naps, only missing days when she really can't do it.

In her support group, another has carried on working so she isn't in the limelight for redundancy, and another to keep her mind off how sick she feels.
The rest are retired.

...it just surprises me as it's such a brutal disease...and I thought surely the body needs a rest to recover properly and sickness policies should allow for this?
I also thought the sickness, pain, fatigue and anxiety would be too distracting for people to.work, but apparently not!

I have been in my job for 17 years. During that time I have had cancer twice. The first time I required multiple life saving surgeries plus chemo. I was absent for well over a year. Recently my cancer returned and I needed chemo followed by a Stem cell transplant. I returned to work Iin April after 20 months off. In either case there is absolutely no way I could have continued working. I was too sick and extremely vulnerable. However, I wouldn't judge anyone for working whilst ill even though I don't think it's a good idea. Even now, I work reduced hours (2 days) due to the after effects of chemo and cancer. My work have been incredibly supportive each time and I am fortunate that it has a generous sickness policy with 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay. I was paid like this each time.

Cancer doesn't follow a straight linear path.
Every single cancer type is different, its just they all are called cancer so some people think they are the same and everyone gets the same treatment which has the same side effects as theirs which they found perfectly fine.
Some cancers are very slow growing, cause almost next to no symptoms until critical mass times and the treatment is gruelling (massive surgery, chemotherapy baths to internal organs) whilst others can be picked up relatively early, the treatment is surgery, a bit of radiotherapy and job done. For others no treatment is needed at all, just watchful waiting.
No one size fits all approach works because the cancers are not the same and people are not the same.

It boils down to the sickness benefits covered in the employment contract. People so often forget that the pay/salary relates to the work rendered.

If the contractual sickness benefits are: SSP, one month full pay or six months full pay, that's what people will get.

Anyone without good contractual cover and everyone with financial commitments/children needs to take out critical ill-health insurance as early as possible - it's far more important for most people than life insurance.

We are all just worker bees in the modern world. If people want to work through it and are able to then that’s great, but I feel for the people who HAVE to work through it with no choice. Health problems and treatment effects everyone differently. This world expects people to behave like robots, which I guess is why so many companies are embracing tech and AI to steal peoples jobs, because we aren’t robots!

My gosh, shame on that manager! I hope cancer never bites her where it hurts! What an absolutely disgraceful thing to say about someone.

This is why we pay for critical illness cover. We have 50k each plus DH has another 200k or so through his job. If I was diagnosed with late stage cancer or something internal such as bowel/lung I would quit my job.

I have a colleague with terminal cancer. He works as and when he can, he would be paid if he were off but he chooses to work as it keeps his mind active and off having cancer, his own personal choice.

This! Not all cancers are the same. Not all treatments are the same. Not all side effects of different treatments are the same.

It's a bit like trying to claim for a blue badge or disability benefits. It's not the condition, it's how the condition/treatment affects you.

In most cases, it would be way over the top and unnecessary to simply not go to work for the entire period between diagnosis and confirmation of remission. Remission is often only confirmed many months after the treatments have finished, so there'd be months of very little medical happening, very little need to be off work, etc!

What's more needed is some level of flexibility to take more time off. Hospital and doctor appointments soak up so much time, not just for the treatment itself, but also for blood tests, x-rays and scans, consultations, even phone calls to arrange all the different appointments needed. You don't need months off work to do that, but you need to be able to take half days off regularly to attend appointments etc.

I think most decent employers and HR departments will understand, especially if they've experienced other staff with cancer in the past.

Of course, it goes without saying, that if the kind of cancer you have or the kind of treatment you're undertaking completely wipes you out, then you have no option but not to go to work!

My OH is exactly the same. He still works as much as he can, not for financial reasons, but because he likes the work, likes the people, etc and has flexibility to attend appointments etc freely, and likewise no restrictions on him being on the phone for hours whilst at work sometimes when he has to make/change hospital appointments (which is a nightmare). He'd be miserable if he just sat at home vegetating waiting for his cancer to kill him!

We are worrying about this at the moment. My very lovely DP was diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer yesterday. He’s got a treatment plan - chemo and then radiotherapy and they told him that although it’s curable, he’d be off for at least six months (he has quite a physical job).

He’s got no idea what his company policy is and we’re both worried about how we’ll manage if he’ll only get SSP. He earns quite a bit more than me.

My husband worked when he felt well enough. His company were brilliant and happy for him to work at home. It just took his mind off cancer for a while. He worked until 2 weeks before he died.

I always assumed one would go off sick from the day of diagnosis to the day the doctor announces you're in remission

Why? I think most people work when they feel well enough and don't work when they don't.

All cancers are different. Plenty of people don't actually feel even remotely unwell until they start having treatment. My mum had breast cancer when I was a kid and they only time she felt properly unwell was for a week or two after her surgery and then for 48 hours or so after each chemo session. My sister had cervical cancer and I think the only time she felt ill was when she had an actual hospital procedure to remove part of her cervix. She didn't have chemo and she didn't have any ill effects from her radiotherapy.

As for your friend saying she doesn't want to use up sick days - well, yeah, that's something people do have to worry about if they've exceeded the amount of time off they're allowed to have on full pay. Statutory sick pay is usually much lower than someone's salary, so for a lot of people, relying on it to have months/years off work isn't an option.

When a family member was going through chemo, I was shocked to learn via international chat sites for people with the same diagnosis that people in the US often had to work throughout their treatment, because of course their health insurance comes via their employment, so if they lose the job, they lose the healthcare cover.

Some people are straight on to statutory sick pay only - not everyone has the luxury of 6months full pay followed by 6 months half pay first.
In my profession the norm seems to be 2 weeks paid sick in any rolling 12month period and then only when you’ve been employed for a year.
I think SSP is just over £100 per week and most income protection plans don’t kick in until 12 weeks

My company have treated my colleagues with cancer very well. The sickness policy is full pay for six months, then half pay for another six months. Beyond that is discretionary.
We had a man in our office who sadly passed away this year after living with a terminal diagnosis for many years. Towards the end, he was only asked to log on once a fortnight to keep his systems live so that his children would be able to receive his death in service benefits.

As a nurse, assuming she is on a normal contract (not bank) and has been employed for more than 2 years, she is entitled to 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay. I don't know any one who has worked whilst having cancer treatment.
I have one colleague who has been off for 16 months now, and one who went off 6 weeks ago and we aren't expecting to see her for a year.

As PP say cancer is not a single illness, some find it possible to work for much of their illness and others don’t. Other conditions can be more debilitating day to day than undergoing treatment for some cancers. I’ve had colleagues in both situations.

Sick pay varies a lot by employer. As a rule of thumb the public sector is generous, large corporates can be generous (we have both generous sick leave and liberal use of discretion for staff with serious health conditions).

For the majority of workers in the UK SSP is their total entitlement.

Everyone, especially with children to support, should check their critical illness cover. Some pension schemes include an element of this as do some life assurance policies (of the type you take out for mortgage protection). If you have neither then you should take out cover for at least as long as you have dependents.

I think it depends on the person and the work place. I was self employed when I was diagnosed and needed six rounds of chemo, I worked when I could up to round 4 and then stopped as I wasn’t looking after myself properly to be able to continue with the next treatment plan for me, but we took a hit financially and not everyone can afford to do that.

My work gave me 3 months full pay, then 50%, then statuary sick pay. I had to take 5 months off last year with lymphoma, I was stage 4 and had the strongest chemo drugs they have apparently, I couldn’t have worked, I could barely get up the stairs after the second round. I was vulnerable and got norovirus, couldn’t get out of bed after that and had to be admitted to hospital. I’m back part time now and my work have been very supportive.

As a fellow nurse l know how shitty work places can be about people being sick -even if it’s cancer! It’s ironic we look after sick people but aren’t really allowed to be sick ourselves. During my nurse training my dad died and l only got a few days off, no one wanted to commit to anything and it was treated as an inconvenience

I was diagnosed with a rare cancer two years ago. I still go to work almost every day, mainly because I haven't started treatment yet. I'm lucky in that it is progressing far more slowly than it has done in other patients. I'd likely be dead already if it progressed as normal. The treatment (immunosuppressive chemo and transplants) will be severe, so it's a case of waiting as long as possible so my life isn't impacted until it has to be.

When I do have to start treatment, it will mean a minimum of six months off work, probably more, so I will use the income-continuance scheme I've been paying into at work for the last 20 years. As it stands, I get the time off that I need for doctor's appointments. If I need to take time off for e.g. fatigue, it comes off my sick or annual leave. HR have been very good at helping to maximise the amount of leave I can take without penalty.

On that subject, I can't fault HR at all. All the cynics on here that complain about HR and claim they don't care about their employees have never dealt with ours. I'm not the only cancer patient here, and all of us have had nothing but positive experiences with HR and how they are helping us through it.

2x cancer patient here.

I worked when I could during breast cancer treatment (surgery, brutal chemo, radiation) because I simply could not let cancer call the shots and take over every aspect of my life. I wanted to work, so I did.

After my second diagnosis, I had a brain op with very serious complications, so I had to take three months off sick. It was frustrating and boring, but I couldn't stay awake for longer than a few hours at a time while recovering from surgery, so I just couldn't work, no matter how much I was longing for my normal life.

It's a very individual decision - some people need/want their normal life to continue, some need/want to focus on their health 100% of the time.

And then there is the financial side of things. Who can afford to drop from a decent salary to statutory sick pay? Most employers have limits to their sick pay policies. In my case, it was supposed to be 30 days at full pay only, although our rather wonderful CEO overruled that and ensured I continued to get paid when I was recovering. Not sure how I would have paid the mortgage otherwise...

I’ve just had a meeting with my employer and HR. I so wish I could return to my job, but I can’t. Cancer has me, I don’t get to call the shots on this one.