Employed & shielding have no legal protection

[YorkshireTeacake]

Can't believe this. Am fuming. There is no legal protection in place for the shielding who are employed.

The 50 page guidelines just some best practice tips for employers, but none of it is mandatory.

So you could legally sack someone who is shielding.

Unbelievable.

While shielding is, of course, partly for our individual health, it's also partly for the public good in that we are the group who would most likely overwhelm the NHS. It's in no ones best interests for us to be out and about right now.

I agree. But what’s the answer? The government could legislate to enforce furloughing shielding employees. That may happen although personally I think it’s probably unlikely. Particularly as from August employers will have to start paying some of the furlough money.

Or there will have to be a new scheme whereby the government pays a higher level of benefits to people who can’t work because they are shielding than it does to people who can’t work for other reasons. That then leads to affordability and unfairness discussions.

There is no perfect answer.

Oh, I absolutely agree - there's no easy answer at all. I was just pointing out that it's not nearly as simple as saying we are staying in only for our own benefit.

That was a response to the poster above saying it was for the public good.

It’s both.

I found a tiny crumb of hope for Shielding people who have been refused furlough on The Martin Lewis MSE site.

This is the smokescreen of Rishi's approach.

Chuck loads of money at problem and make it look like we're doing loads. But healthy low risk people can go back to work. Kids of low risk parents can go back to school.

Losers: shielded, women, vulnerable elderly.

We keep saying we are in this, but we do not have to be..we just need to target the response better. It does not take a rocket scientist to work out.

It is a mess. Even the government. Example: I was not on original shielded list. Got call last week to say I am like hundreds others. I can get a letter from 111. Could clearly use this but am not as don't need to. Yet many real shielded had to fight.

I think it will be more a case of do not sack shielded, you will be found out type thing. Just hope employer is good.

The thought of DM in 70s going back to job as care worker fills me with horror.

Not sure that really helps NoNames. It just points out that furlough is available to employers in respect of shielding employees, which is clearly stated all over the government guidance already.

What would probably help most is a combination of;

Furlough being enforced rather than optional
Furlough being extended longer
Furlough being fully funded by the government for longer than July
The introduction of statutory shielding leave
Higher level of government benefits for shielding people

Any or all of those would be great, and some of them may happen, who knows. But it's a careful balancing act for the Government in terms of affordability of all the different measures they are putting in place for lots of groups/organisations, the cost to the economy and businesses folding if the burden is placed on them at a time they simply cannot afford it.

It is a nightmare situation for lots and lots of people in lots of ways, there's no doubt about it.

@NoNamesNoPackDrillHere Yes DM was furloughed as over 70.

But what happens in Aug if no vaccine. Gov only pays 40%. Employer say come back part time, you will earn 50%. Incentive for employee to get 90%. Or, only 40%.

What benefit can you get to top up 40% of your income? Will mortgages have to be paid? What about overdraft fees that will be hiked in July. Will they still go up? How much can someone realistically save now-Aug. Given no one knows when a vaccine is going to be found how much do you need. How do we protect shielded.

Paid shielding leave (on the maternity leave model) for all those who cannot work from home would be the best solution.

Because the government really is asking a lot of this group. It's complete isolation, even within the home, if you do it to the full extent, and for an indefinite period, but longer than all other groups. The MH toll could also be severe.

At least we could sure they aren't forced to choose between risking COVID and losing their home, or driving them into poverty. Though as they'd be out of sight, it would all too easily be out of mind until it was too late.

I agree @nether.

I agree nether

Shielding list being updated with HMG to review and report back by end of June apparently:
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/13/ministers-pressed-for-clarity-on-length-of-lockdown-for-most-vulnerable

@YorkshireTeacake Thank you for posting this. Do you have the link to the original document that you screenshotted? I can find similar things but not this exact wording and I think it's quite important, I need to raise with employer and Occupational Health etc.

yorkshirejo

I had a conversation with my GP yesterday about what happens after end of June - he was frankly despairing with the confusing advice coming from government. He said that the advice that they are getting about who to include in the shielding group is sometimes changing twice weekly, that some.patients are included and then excluded, some have been missed altogether, some were excluded but are now being included and that they have no.idea what is to happen after end of June.

I was trying to work out whether I can go back to work but his view was that the advice is so unclear that he can't advise me at the moment. The actual risk of me catching it is low, the risk of serious complications or death is much higher than a healthy person of my age but not guaranteed. As he said, the problem is not knowing who is going to get seriously ill. Ultimately his advice was this is a novel virus, much is still unknown and so the only good advice is to err on the side of caution. Whether employers will take the same view is another matter.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras. I want to echo that it is certainly not inevitable that we will get covid severely. I developed it on March 21 and the next week was writing my will, advance directive etc as I assumed I would be hospitalised and might die. As it happens, although it’s been horrible and I’ve still got symptoms, I haven’t needed to be admitted and have had it no more severely than many others with no comorbities. I would say definitely don’t take any risks but if you do catch it, for many of us it is not a given that we will get it severely.

I do completely understand that. The problem is in defining not taking risks (if I go back to work I definitely can't social distance so is that taking a risk?) and also not knowing whether you will be one of the ones seriously affected. Someone has published risk of death on another thread and for someone in their 50s it was around 1:167. That seems very high to me and that's without co morbidities taken into account. So, yes, being seriously ill isn't guaranteed but the odds still seem too high for me to disregard completely.

@Schrodingerspeanutbuttersandw It was from the gov website:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-shielding-and-protecting-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19/guidance-on-shielding-and-protecting-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19

It was from 12 May but it changes daily, so ...

I have written to my (ghastly) MP about it and apparantely I will get a response from DWP in due course.

No, ignore me - it was from the new guidance document.

I got it from a source on Twitter. I will try and dig it out ...

Here you go:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-to-employers-and-businesses-about-covid-19/guidance-for-employers-and-businesses-on-coronavirus-covid-19

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras absolutely. I am not disagreeing with you.