What are my options if I cannot work from home and > 28 weeks pregnant?

[Doggywoof]

I need some advice/opinions please. Couldn't find any similar recent threads hence this post, but if there are, please reply with a link to it.

I will be 28 weeks soon, and am full-time NHS worker. Manager says there are no work-from-home options for me (I am fully clinical). Risk assessment supports stay-at-home as per RCOG guidelines. Apart from taking maternity leave early at 28 weeks (which I am reluctant to as I will have less paid leave left after birth), what are my other options? HR have not been too helpful as they are not sure themselves. Just wanting to know if anyone else had been offered anything different prior to starting maternity leave? Suspension with pay? Without pay? Furloughed? Just want to weigh all my options, is all. Thanks.

What have occupational health said?

Hi nobbymcphailisverypale, they just advised me to get a risk assessment with my manager, which I have done. They did not give me advice about pay options though. Should be HR but they bounced the ball back to my department.

Also NHS. I would be inclined to follow the risk assessment and work from home. If your manager cannot come up with useful tasks for you then that is ultimately their responsibility. In the meantime I would focus on making sure you're up to date with mandatory training etc, complete courses on E-LFH, and similar.

I wouldn't be proposing paid/unpaid leave options - leave it to them to sort out and, in the mean time, follow the risk assessment. Knowing how slowly NHS HR works I suspect the kid will probably have started university before anyone makes a decision.

In our department (also NHS) all pregnant staff are going off at 28 weeks as per RCOG guidance and since we can’t ‘work from home’ as we are frontline clinical we are on ‘covid leave’, which is full pay and separate from maternity leave. Depending on individual circumstances, people are then starting their maternity leave at whatever gestation they had originally planned. Hope that helps

I'd leave it to them to make proposals to you. I don't believe they can force maternity leave until 36 weeks.

As per others, pregnant colleagues in our dept are on covid leave or WFH. None expected to take mat leave early. The doctors are doing consultative work from home (so Ward referrals and telephone Outpatient clinics) and so are quite busy. A Shielding clinical nurse specialist also able to do similar. It’s harder for ward nurses to be so useful from home. Possibly similar for physios too. Depending on how inclined you are, I’d think about asking for a project you could do for team remotely, protocols you could update (esp improving any that annoy you), audit etc. It would be helpful and look good for future promotion. However, if they can’t find you anything you effectively can stay home on full pay until you take mat leave. Which I guess would be date of baby’s birth if able to be home until that point on full pay.

Hi there. I am in a key worker role where it's impossible to work from home. I'm 40 weeks today and my employer sent me home on fully paid special leave at the start of lock down. Won't affect holidays or mat leave.

Surely the risk assessment is there to identify risks and then manage them?Risk can't be eliminated but it should be managed to acceptable levels.

We're not NHS but are public sector and our HR advice is that we should make every effort to have people in the vulnerable but not shielded group work from home, until that is not possible, they should be at work with additional control measures. If they are unwilling to attend work, leave is unpaid (although we haven't had to do that, everyone is either wfh or coming in)

Hi everyone, thank you very much for your posts. Got a much clearer picture now, will keep up my CPD as always and just wait for them to sort things out. Already doing audits, educational material and data gathering for COVID19 studies at the moment, on top of outpatient clinics but I suspect this will have to stop as it is direct patient contact. Cheers everyone, been super helpful. Take care!

Just wanted to make sure you were aware of the charity "pregnant then screwed" - they have been doing loads of campaigning for women in your exact situation so well worth contacting their advice line.

If I remember correctly then you have to be off on full pay if you can't work from home, anything else is discrimination because pregnancy is a protected characteristic.

If they cannot provide you with a suitable alternative role then you go off on medical suspension on full pay till your mat leave starts. I've said in another thread, speak to your union. Look at maternity action website aswell