To get a drs note for stress due to covid-19 and childcare issues

[Hmmmmminteresting]

I feel sick I'm so stressed!

Have 2 x dc in full time nursery. Our fees are £1400 a month which is crippling for me and dh as our other bills are expensive too.
Today nursery have announces that should they be forced to close (which they think they will very soon) we will still be charged in full.

Also today, my work have said that they will not be allowing any working from home and if we have to go off to look after dc due to school or nursery closures we will be allowed dependency leave but it will be unpaid.
DH has asked his boss tonight and been told the same. Ds1 starts school in september and we have all of our annual leave booked already for the year to ensure we have holidays covered.
We have no help from family around here at all.
Would I be unreasonable to aim to go to the doctors in the next week and get signed off, just so I can get sick pay (I get 12 weeks paid sick leave a year). I'm so stuck and I know I wont sleep tonight!

Any better ideas I'm very open to

Agree with @ginswinger by the way. It's a shame, given how developed we are (though some people voted for Boris Johnson, so maybe not?!) that there aren't far better plans in place. The fact is things are how they are and in some situations you don't have any other choice (eg not paying nursery because they are not caring for your child and allowing you to go to work and get paid... so that you can pay them).

I'm a GP and you wouldn't get a sick note out of me for this, sorry. It's fraud. I am very used to people coming in wanting sick notes for normal life stresses, it's obvious.

You could talk to the school about deferring your child starting school til Jan 2021. I think all children can do this.

When my child went to nursery they were happy to take them for a few days at half term after they went to school (at a cost, of course). There are also probably lots of holiday clubs for school aged children, although it is a bit tricky for 4 year olds, they are cheaper than nursery.

Another option is to find some other parents in the same boat at nursery and you minimise your days off by looking after each other's children.

lots of parents will be trying the same thing......and it won't wash

employers are wise to these tricks

Your employers sounds v unreasonable. Each of you call in sick for a week, that'll buy you two weeks, then each of you bring a child in to work. The employer cant really complain, they've left you no choice and youre still turning up for work. The government will hopefully put more in place by then for these unusual times and working parents.

I don’t think some people understand the concept of literally not being allowed time off. If I don’t go in to work tomorrow I am sacked end of.

I think this is the impossible combo
-Many parents likely to be on reduced/no income
-no control for the provider over when/if they close
-potentially long closures way in excess of most childcare companies reserves
-no bloody insurance.

It's shit all round. And it's not about being more concerned about the corporations either: the nursery staff have families too, and if lots of nurseries fold then what will happen when things reopen and people want to go back to work? No childcare. That's a lot of (mainly women) who will be screwed

We're actively lobbying politicians btw. Cos we know it's fucking shit.

I understand what you are saying, waterbottle but there will be some people who look and act ill who aren't and, in these circumstances, you can't blame them! The poor op and her husband will have to pay a nursery enormous fees for nothing and not receive pay from work, if the worse comes to the worst. That hardly encourages honesty. I'm the last one to encourage lying but I have the greatest sympathy for this person. All we can do is hope it doesn't happen.

@snappycamper "Don't believe this for a moment. They charge a fortune and pay their staff peanuts." May be true for some, but not the norm - many are going out of business. Many of their fees are paid by local authorities who pay a pittance (£4.65ph in my area), so they have to charge parents a bit more to try to break even. I am involved in a church pre-school. We pay a little more than peanuts to staff (living wage as a minimum, a bit more to qualified staff and a bit more to managers, so more than you'd get eg working in most retail). About two-thirds of our fees are paid by local authorities. We run at a loss, despite paying no rent or bills - it basically costs the church to have the pre-school but we run it as a service for the community. If we opened for more hours, we'd just make a bigger loss, as there's not many economies of scale in childcare, as staffing makes up most of your costs.

I’m a GP and you wouldn’t get through the surgery door. Please don’t even consider this, I appreciate you are going through a dreadfully stressful time but this would be fraudulent and we have enough fish to fry ourselves right now

Loads of small businesses that don't have cash reserves are going to go out of business as a result of this. Including nurseries (who for the most part pay their very young staff minimum wage).

The nurseries should have made sure that they had adequate insurance cover. Business interruption is a normal risk and the management of these nurseries should have thought about what would lead to interruption - it really is only illness or the building becoming unusable for whatever reason. Standard policies don't cover this sort of pandemic but specialist cover would have. Standard cover is cheap comparatively but I bet they will get appropriate cover for the future.

No one will be paying my husbands business when he can't perform his services because everyone is in lockdown. Regardless of what the contract says. As a result of that he will most probably have to make people redundant if this goes on for any period of time.

By the time he has argued the rights or wrongs of the contract it will be too late - he will have gone bust. The same will be true for the nurseries. I wouldn't be paying as you have no guarantee that the nursery will survive in any event and I very much suspect you will be in the minority. I would be very surprised if your nursery contract specifically deals with full fees being payable in the event of a pandemic and would question whether that was an unfair contract term if it did. If you own a nursery you ought to be approaching your MP requesting that the government do something to help your situation not simply demanding vast sums of money from your clients because it's in the contract - but it's not really any different to any other small business.

In my area at least many of the nursery nurses will be on zero hour contracts anyhow. Those nurseries won't be paying their staff anyhow (and I understand the government have said that they will simplify claiming of universal credit).

So your in corporate and they won't accommodate/pay? 12 weeks sick pay? I'm very confused. Have you a union? Sounds like your going to have to do shared holidays with DH, especially if you have 12 weeks

Standard policies don't cover this sort of pandemic but specialist cover would have.

This is completely inaccurate for us. There are only a handful of companies who insure childcare, and none of them are covering. We have the most comprehensive policy that's available to us. I think it's a bit shitty to blame people for having cover which specifically covers notifiable diseases for the list not include a never before heard of disease...We don't just have basic public liability

We have no staff on zero hours, btw. A total of 3 apprentices (one per site) who get actual training and formal qualifications. All of our staff are over NMW and always have been.

Can you not pay a local child minder? Or ask around? Why can’t non working mums help with childcare? Sure it’s stressful but it will be short term. Why can’t you and dad pull the holidays? Have you asked to work evenings, weekends, early morning? Split shifts? They want you working as much as you want to be paid.

Definitely do try this because I don't see any other solution to the problem. The worst that can happen is they say no.

I have a real history of Clinical Depression alongside other Psychiatric conditions so I would not normally suggest this but could you also tell the GP that you are feeling very Depressed (if this isn't already the case) because they might have more grounds to sign you off that way.

Of course you cannot pay your childcare fees with no income!

Definitely do it I've no doubt you're very stressed with the situation. You pay tax.
You put enough in the pot, as your employers are playing a dick head game throw the ball back. as long as you are employed over 2 years and wont be sacked I doubt you'll have a problem with a GP signing you off sick from stress. The bloody government should be compensating wages and childcare fees.
They've shut the school and creche settings here already.

Very few insurance companies cover business interruption following covid19 related enforced closure because it's never happened before so hasn't ever been requested to be written into policy wording. Some insurers do cover closure due to notifiable diseases but most have tighter wordings and specify illnesses covered. I dont think policyholders can be blamed for not requesting insurance for circumstances that havent happened in living memory and insurers cant be blamed for not covering an illness that hadn't been invented yet. Insurers giving open ended interruption cover for any contagious disease would all go bankrupt in a pandemic and that wouldn't help anyone. Something as big as this is for the government to help out with as individuals, businesses and insurers can't afford it. And yes I would expect to pay the nursery when it closed due to something unforeseen that isn't its fault, if it was for just a few weeks, if I wanted there to be a nursery to put my child back in when the pandemic was over. It is providing a service, the government would just not be letting you use it. I would expect any cost savings (premises heating, food, agency staff, overtime etc.) to be reflected in the fees though

I’m amazed how many people don’t seem to get it. School closures have a bad enough impact (which is presumably why they are being delayed) but forced nursery closures are a completely different beast. They are effectively an essential service but a private one. The government need to come up with some helpful policies quickly. In the same way, I don’t think the guidance on the 7 day isolation has thought through caring for children and the impact on working parents.
The government is going to need to require employers to be more flexible as too many are still being bloody minded and trying to apply the same rules.

Yes, yabu to fake anxiety and stress

@snappycamper I assume you will be happy not to get paid every time you are off work because you are not providing the service you are contracted to provide

You could approach the nursery about reduced fees. You have paid them a lot of money over time and will be a valued customer for some time yet. I had a situation with nursery when they were charging for closed weeks and we came to an arrangement.

The 7 day isolation hasn't thought through businesses either. Budget announced ssp from day 1 and reclaimable from government for anyone asked to self isolate due to cv. We were told staff would be able to phone 111 for a corona sick note - suggesting this would be needed by the employer for reclaim to ensure it only happened for CV.

Yesterday they told people to isolate for 7 days with a cough and not to phone 111...

According to our payroll company there's no reclaim measure in place, and certainly no info forthcoming about how it actually works.

It is shit all round. Thank Christ my kids are no longer that age but it would have pushed me over the edge entirely if I had faced that.
I think realistically you cannot pay wages you don't get for childcare you can't use. You will not be the only family.
I can't see how contractually you can be held to it ( although I haven't seen your contract). I don't blame nursery one bit for saying it bevause their business is disappearing before their eyes.
I think your actual issue is " what do I do about childcare if my nursery goes bust." Govt needs to step up.

But in the meantime, if nursery closed, I would "self isolate" for 7 days to start with and take it from there. I genuinely would.

Agree CremeBrule. If there's a length shutdown then the schools will still be there when it's time for them to restart - although some private schools might be screwed too. But childcare providers might well not be.

Without something happening then that is a lot of people - mostly women - who have a big problem. Staff with no jobs, parents with no care when there's already a shortfall.

Personally I've written to politicians asking that they look at how to support us, or do what Japan have done in the event schools close and keep nurseries and after school clubs (on extended hours where possible) open. This would still dramatically reduce the number of circulating children but would give parents who need to keep going out to work, or who can't WFH with a younger child, an option. Note the Japanese curve - it's not a crazy plan.

Maybe people who are concerned could write to MP/MSP etc and request they do this and/or provide support for the industry?