Non-British front line workers... how long without seeing our families?

[mumtobe9]

I just heard yesterday that on arriving to Ireland and Spain you can present a negative Covid test taken within the last 72 hours to exclude you from having to quarantine. Whereas i know that there can be false negatives and sometimes you dont test positive after a few days after being infected... Could they please do this for keyworkers in the UK? I haven't seen my family in a year and raising a baby completely by myself and my husband, is not easy. I have accepted that we will be the 3 of us alone in Christmas, but... things are not going to get better in the next 2 months! I have some sick relatives, so there is not going to be "more christmases ahead".

Any NHS workers have travelled home recently? What did your manager say/did? I suppose i could spend my whole annual leave allowance for the year in one go to go home and then self-isolate. i also wonder if a close relative dies and i have to go to the funeral, and i dont have 10 days of annual leave left to quarantine in my return???
I have already spend a lot of unpaid carers leave to mind my child who had to self-isolate 3 times already due to being sick/ a child being positive in her class.

I might sound selfish to a lot of mumsnetters, but it is very lonely and i dont see the pandemic disappearing in the next year.

Bump

Ah OP I feel for you. I don't think anyone can really know what it's like to live so far away from loved ones unless they've experienced it themselves long term. My dad is an immigrant and I know how tough he has found this. He actually took a short trip 'home' in the summer but he can WFH so he just did that on return for the quarantine. He has an elderly father who isn't in great health who he hadn't seen for over a year at that point.

Can you take any type of special leave? My DH is NHS and I know the special leave entitlement is usually 3 paid days but they extended it to 7 or 10 I can't remember exactly. Not sure if that's just his trust or not?

Not sure what your job is, could you do any home working at all? E.g. my brother is also NHS (pharmacist) and they've been able to facilitate some home working for pharmacists who have had to isolate/quarantine when normally they wouldn't. Obviously not all roles can be done at all from home though.

I assume you'd be able to take some type of bereavement leave in case of a bereavement and you could pretty easily had sick leave to that which I think most people tend to do anyway.