Sick note charges

[VanillaHoney]

My friend is having dental treatment done. She needs to go to the dentist on 2 consecutive Tuesdays. (first one was earlier this week). She normally works for a leisure centre every Tuesday. She told her employer that she was not able to work last Tuesday as well as next Tuesday so employer said she should get medical evidence. Dentist on the other hand is happy to provide 2 sick notes at a cost of £16.50 each!!! Her company said she should pay and are not happy to cover the cost. I have just checked my employment contract which states that sickness less than 7 days does not need a doctors note (self certify) so I told her to check what is in her contract. Turns out she does not have one?!!! She is however getting payslips. Also asked her if she gets sick pay and she said she does not get any.

If there are no written contract terms can get employer than insist she pays the sick note out of her own pocket considering it is only 2 days?

Thank you.

Did she tell them she was off sick or was she asking for time off for a dental appointment? I'm just struggling to see where sick notes and sick pay come into it?

She doesn't need a sick note because she wasn't off sick, and if she was off sick, she could self certify for the first 7 days as you know. Assuming she asked beforehand for the time off for a dental appointment and was told that's fine, the only thing I can think is that they want proof she actually had an appointment and was at the dentist rather than somewhere else. Does she not have an appointment letter?

It was an emergency appointment so she phoned and said she would not be in because she had to go to the dentist. At the appointment the dentist told her to come back for further treatment in a weeks time. She was in agony so going in after the dentist was not an option. She was sent home with painkillers and antibiotics.. Whatever she is having done next week is under sedation so she told her employer that she needs the whole day. Employer now wants "medical evidence" their argument is that she would be away from work for more than 7 days, although in real time it would only be 2 Tuesdays . (6 hours in total). She does gym classes. All she has from the dentist so far is a text message telling her when her next appointment is... She also works for other leisure centres, explained that she could not take the classes because she was in pain and nobody else seemed to make a problem of it. All they said was ok, will arrange cover.. I think that if the employers want the note from the dentist it would be fair if they foot the bill. She is probably going to pay up because it is not worth the hassle. I just think it is not fair tbh... But I probably got it all wrong..

Thank you for your help..

If she takes classes at a leisure centre once a week and does similar through the week at other centres and doesn't have an employment contract is she definitely employed? I would expect someone like that to be self employed really.

If it's a pre booked dental appointment it's not sickness absence anyway. And even if she was off sick for the emergency this week, she's been back at work since then presumably.

If they are not going to pay her for the time off anyway what are they going to do if she does provide a medical certificate?

Don't know how to handle the first but I would suggest she makes the 2nd apt for the Wed thus not missing a day of work

Surely all she needs is a letter with her appointment dates on? She isn't off for 7 days she's off for two 1 day periods which is different. They can't deny her medical treatment?

Her invoice for treatment, coupled with her appointment card should be enough evidence of why she is off the 2 Tuesdays, surely?

That was my point exactly. She has payslips with a tax code, emoter deducts tax but no employment contract. I'm totally baffled that this is above board to be honest. Personally I would not work without some sort of written agreement. A few months ago they called her in the morning to say that air conditioning had packed up and engineers were called to fix it so no classes & no pay.. So my point is really that if they are not going to pay her anything for the 2 missed sessions why do they need a note from the dentist for which they do not want to meet the cost either.

If it were me I would drop them an email saying that I would be happy to provide a dentist note if they compensate for the costs incurred.. I really don't think that is unreasonable.

If they were going to pay her, they could put conditions on that payment, but as they are not, there is no earthly reason they need it.

She does need to sort out her arrangements more generally though. I would expect someone working for a number of different people doing something like she does to be self employed. Being employed individually by all of them for one day a week or whatever doesn't make a lot of sense especially given the nature of what she does, so if I were her I'd ask them to take her off their payroll and pay her gross, get the other employers/clients to do the same, and be responsible for her own taxes.

Thank you for all your advice. Have printed the tread and will show to my friend when I see her tomorrow..

Very much appreciated. :-)