Pregnant nanny refusing to work

[Octonought]

Advice please. My nanny is pregnant and refusing to come to work as my twins are unwell, in case it's flu as she hasn't had her flu jab, and claims she hasn't even been offered one (she's about 17w). I'm a bit surprised she hasn't been offered one as I know this is a target group for flu jabs .
I'm livid about this. I don't qualify for a flu jab but choose to have one (which I pay for) as I work in a high risk profession for catching illness. She has had what I consider a lot of time off sick since she started, has been late without apologising (because it wasn't her fault!). This is despite the fact that I had called a friend at 8am to cover for my nanny until she arrived as not going to work is not an option for me - and she had been late or absent on 3 previous occasions in the previous weeks which was impacting on my job.
There have been other issues too which I won't go into here.
DH has had a massive row with her on the phone this evening after she texted me (again, despite having been told before that she needs to call me if she is going to be absent) to inform me that's she's not coming in the rest of the week as my girls have temperatures.
I'm at the end of my tether, this is our second nanny, and both our experiences have been disappointing. I have a nanny as I have a 3 preschool age children, not because I can afford the luxury. Right now, nursery seems like a much more attractive option....

And, the reason that texting is a big issue for us, is that she has twice texted in the morning to say she's not coming, and I haven't received the messages for a long time as I wasn't by my phone when they arrived. I've only seen them when I've gone to phone her to find out why she's late.

Don't lose hope of finding a wonderful nanny, I'm now a CM but have been a nanny and have lots of nanny friends who are all incredible.

I would be tempted to seek a second legal opinion. Document everything, all communication, if you have any phone calls with her, follow it up with an email confirming that you both understood the same thing from your conversation.
Definitely review duties and do risk assessment as others have said. How much notice do you have to give her- is it 4 weeks?
Good luck, let us know how you get on x

I understand why your husband might be stressed, but it's still a bad move. It's still going to look terrible in court. He needs to control himself.

Again, with the texting, I understand it's annoying, but you can help yourself by just checking your phone first thing. Or get DH to check it when he gets up. You shouldn't have to do that, but until you can get rid of her you need to think of ways to make it work as best as possible. Continue telling her to ring, but if she doesn't simply checking your phone in the morning will make your life easier. Out of interest, what time does she text? From your OP I thought she'd text the evening before to let you know she wasn't coming in?

You need to find an agency that provides emergency nannies. You're not paying your nanny so it shouldn't be too much of a financial strain to get cover for the day, although obviously not ideal.

I've thought of a possible way out for you. I am not a lawyer and you would need to seek legal advice regarding this approach.

You should seek to find another nanny and when you've found one, put your existing one on suspension for all the non pregnancy issues you have with her just as not Ofsted registered, not communicating when she will be off sick by the method you have instructed (phone calls) etc.
Her suspension will end when she goes on maternity leave.

Do you know if she has family locally that will look after her child for free when her maternity leave is over? If not, there would be a good chance that she would then want to bring her child to work. At this point you could refuse (looking after a baby + 3 of yours even if one is in school will be too much for her) that suggestion as the job is to only look after your own children only. At this point she would have no option and have to resign.

You can't suspend someone without pay for 9 months just because you feel like it. You can suspend someone while there is an investigation into something , but what would the OP be investigating? You could maybe suspend her until she is Ofsted registered....but you would need to start issuing formal warnings and give her notice etc.

You can totally fire someone when they are pregnant! You can't fire them because they are pregnant, but if you were going to fire them anyway then pregnancy doesn't come into it.

Make her redundant and then use cm or nursery.

Sacking people is a mine field and not to be gone near.

Just serve her her notice period as per the contract.

op has said that she has 3 young children so financially a nanny suits her plus easier in theory as nanny comes to house and sorts out children compared to cm/nursery and op needs to get all 3 up/dressed etc

what was wrong with her refs, did the agency not check them out?? tho always ring latest one if possible and chat to them

agree keep phone with you and check, make sure volume is up so hear the ping of a text

grocklebox you are right to a degree, problem is when someone is pregnant, or disabled in some way, and you want to dismiss them, there are so many more legal implications you have to be careful of.

Just one example, my mom is a matron of a cancer ward, about 5mths ago one of her nurses was on the night shift. She thought she was having contractions so went down to labour dept, she told someone so ward wasn't left unmanned, but what she did do was to falsify documents claming she did the hourly bed checks from 2am-7am, signing and filling out the form in advance of going to labour ward, even inventing toilet breaks. There was recently a disciplinary, but because this nurse said it was baby brain, she was just in a rush to see midwife blah blah, the hospital decided she couldn't be sacked, despite making a potentially fatal error by falsifying nhs documents!!! If you consider this is the nhs who have powerful legal eagles at their disposal, it just goes to show how difficult it is to put any pregnant lady through any kind of disciplinary action.
I think it's so important the OP seeks a few legal opinions!!

That's outrageous. Seek another legal opinion. You can't put up with another 6m of this you'll be out of a job!

Can you retract the extra leave you've given at new year. Say that you've had to use your holiday to cover her absence and now haven't enough holiday to cover her extra leave !!!

Also disciplinary notices if she continues to text rather than call with her shitty absence excuses. I don't even work in a job where people are relying on me like that and I'd have to call not text or email if sick.

OP, could a local childminder take your son for wraparound care before and after his pre-school and could the twins go into nursery? If you need extra help at both ends of the day (eg to get children up and ready plus do the drop offs and pick ups could you accommodate an au pair? I appreciate this sounds complicated but it might give you a solution to engineer a redundancy and get yourself out of this mess as soon as possible. If you were creating an au pair job you would have to offer it to the nanny first but it is unlikely she would want it on au pair pay. You wouldn't have to do this forever if you weren't happy with this, just long enough to avoid an employment tribunal.

You would have to come up with some reasons why you were restructuring your childcare this way but I dare say you can. If nanny still hasn't sorted out her OFSTed registration, for example, one of your reasons could be a wish to spend your accumulated childcare vouchers!

Obviously, you will need to be consistent with references if your reason for dismissal is redundancy...

You can sack a pregnant woman, as long as it's for reasons unrelated to her pregnancy.

As other posters have said, you need to keep a record of conversations about her time keeping etc, let her have a copy of notes and refer to the fact these conversations and warnings have been going on for some time (ie: it's an issue which has built up over time and the pregnancy is irrelevant). Look at the ACAS guidance on disciplinary procedure and follow the principles.

On a side note, I wish people who don't know anything about employment law would stop giving advice in these circumstances.

The problem for a domestic employer may be having the time and resources to put together a professional and convincing case for sacking in these circumstances. In a corporate environment you have the benefit of additional witnesses to disciplinary conversations, poor performance etc. it might be harder if the only witness at times is the OP as it could become a case or her word against the nanny's on some things (e.g. Frequently being late to work). It doesn't look like problems were documented pre pregnancy either in this case.

How are you coping this week Octo ? Are you off work now yourself?

DH took a day off on Tuesday and I took a day off on Wednesday (I only work mon-wed).
The lawyer said it was the lack of a paper trail that made it incredibly risky. We do actually really like our nanny on a personal level, and the kids really like her. We didn't want to get into written warnings as we never thought we'd end up in this position.
I have looked for a childminder but no one local has any availability.

Feeling your pain Octo and hope a VERY clear chat and the lack of income compel your nanny into a more productive frame of mind

Thanks for the support Munning