What is the role of occupational health review?

[Bangersndmash]

I have been really, really unwell this past year. Breast cancer, chemo, radiotherapy, my latest stint has been 3 weeks as in in patient and a very serious rare disease has now popped up.

long story short, I obviously took this is sick leave and now have to have an OC health review to be able to return to work. I work from home, and want to be able to return to work due to simply NEEDING to. Who does the occupational health person support? Is it there for my interest or for the companies interest? Should I tell them everything or err on the side of caution?

i can do my job otherwise I wouldn’t suggest it, and I am suggesting amendments, but i do want and need to return to work.

ive never had to do this before, I have worked pretty much all year so im absolutely clueless.

TIA

There is no hard and fast rule on this. As other posters have said, it depends on company policy.
It's something you can ask in your meeting and useful to get in writing.
In my experience larger organisations absorb the costs of phased return more readily than smaller firms and for longer , but that's not a hard and fast rule.
It might be useful to find out if anyone in your form has been in a similar position and seems what the precedent is.
Remember your condition is covered by the Equalities Act, so your employers will tread carefully to stay within the law.

@Bangersndmash have you used all your annual leave you accrued during your sickness absence? If not then you might be able to use this to go back on reduced hours at full pay for a longer period of time.

Good luck 🤞🏻

Hi all thank you for your advice/opinions. As OP have said I have decided with full visibility but with a view to looking forward and what I can do now. Thank you.

In my organisation they will recommend whatever the referred person asks them for , this isn't always ideal as some people try to push themselves too much/too soon and end up ill again and if we try and slow then down they mean on their OH report to say they are fine to be doing xyz.

We do reduced hours as part of phased return for up to 6 months and additional breaks for as long as the person needs with no impact on pay but that's public sector

I’ve had them for MS. I found them
pretty pointless as I had sported out any adjustments that I needed and they couldn’t add anything to the mix.

Don’t forget that your sick leave will be on a rolling 12 month basis. So at some point your balance will come down.
You will have accumulated annual leave when you have been off and any bank holidays that you were sick on.

This could be used to extend your phased return . You may also want to consider a flexible work request and any Well-being Passport type thing they have .

I’m a team leader and I would want to know from OH , what can I do to support this staff member back into work in a sustainable way. I’d rather that your phased return was a bit longer so that we didn’t overwhelm you and you go off again.
So 50% for first 2 weeks, 75% for the next 2 weeks but could be longer depending on what OH say and the work policy says.
ours says up to 12 weeks for a phased return and we would be paying you full time for this.