Can my daughter request reasonable adjustments for new catering duties?

[Mackerelfillets]

My adult daughter (adopted as a baby) has foetal alcohol syndrome. She works as a cleaner in a hospital but also does tea/coffee runs and hands out meals. She has been told that going forward she may be asked to do catering as well. This is in her contract but she has never been asked to do it before. This is more than she is capable of as it involves timings, fridge and oven temperatures and various procedures and checks. She's told us if they make her do it she will quit. She's 24 but acts much younger. We know that she is covered to some extent by the Disability Discrimination Act. Can she take her paperwork in and ask them to make reasonable adjustments ie. Not make her do this aspect of the role or can she be fired? The other aspect of this is she isn't able to ask this herself, we would have to do it for/with her.

Reasonable adjustments aren’t there so people can avoid doing parts of their job that they just don’t want to.

Sorry misread your post - if she’s not capable then that’s entirely different. I’d try and arrange a meeting, maybe see if they will allow you to attend as a supporter/advocate as a reasonable adjustment. You can take the paperwork then and try and explain the situation

I actually think you have a vey strong argument that this is NOT, in fact, part of her job remit as she's worked there for 6 years and it has never been part of her remit. So while the official job description may include it, they have, de facto, not included this as part of her job. I assume her FAS is disclosed?

I would absolutely email her manager and explain this. Use the correct terminology which I imagine would be around what level of skill she has when it comes to executive function. If it is possible, I would also offer a solution option. For example, if there are certain things in the kitchen she COULD do whether that's additional cleaning up - eg she does all tray collection, dishwasher loading etc. Or a specific tasks such as moving the meals from a centralised respository to the ward kitchens or whatever might be appropriate.

Actually yes, removing one element of the role can be a reasonable adjustment. It has to be a relatively small part of the role though, so it all depends exactly what "catering" tasks she's being asked to do.

We are in the process of applying for PIP. Has taken 3 months of badgering to get the first part of the application process. It came on Friday (chunky booklet) and is already on its way back to them. She isn't entitled to any UC, or anything else unless she stops working.

Surely they are completely different roles, you'd need training in food hygiene, food prep, infection control, not sure about the risk of cross contamination. Is this a very small hospital, buying in frozen to reheat sounds wasteful and not particularly healthy. Don't they have any freshly made food for the patients.

Thank you for this. FAS is disclosed verbally but they havent seen the report. They didnt ask to see it. I will definately go down this route if it becomes apparant they expect her to start cooking food. But in the meantime I will send the email once I get the address.

I assume the hospital know she has some disability ? That is the first port of call, to ensure they do know. They have not refused reasonable adjustments and if they are unaware then they won’t know.
As someone said, occupational therapy is the way to go.
The other thing to keep an eye on is her pay and grade. Adding duties to her job changes it. And arguably the rate she should be paid at.

All the Facility Technicians went for training a couple of years ago when the role title changed. She will def have forgotten it all, she struggles to retain information. It is a small hospital with 2 wards (each has a kitchen) on the top floor doing respite/convalencing to avoid bed blocking in the bigger city centre hospitals. To be honest I'm only going off what she tells me. There might be fresh food included but she says not. The food might well be made from fresh at the bigger hospitals and transported over.

They know verbally but I will outline this more clearly in the email. You are right in that hopefully when the managers are officially made aware, this may change the duties she had to do.

When I read your OP @MackerelfilletsI did wonder if your DD was working in a hospital. Because the role & change of expectations sounds familiar!

At the hospital where I’m a part time HCSW (a 30 ward acute trust), the domestics (cleaners) are luckily for them still NHS employees (as they threatened industrial action when the hospital management tried to contact out their roles). Years ago the domestics were responsible for clearing up dirty dishes & used cutlery plus filling up the dishwashers as well as cleaning but now us it’s HCSWs who clear up, rinse & load the dishes etc.
We used to give out trays with ready cooked meals from a trolley delivered straight from the kitchen but things have totally changed ‘to save money’ for the kitchens but its created a whole load of work for ward staff!! So now we have a static trolley oven on the ward.
The kitchen staff come to put the frozen food into the trolley oven & set the temperature & timer, we HCSWs get the cooked food out when the alarm goes off, & on my ward (28 patients) we have to take the temperatures and record them, then we plate up & serve the meals, putting them in reach of patients, maybe cutting up food or even feeding patients by hand. (As well as continue to answer call bells & do post op observations at the same time). It’s a lot! We’ve all had to do 3 separate online food hygiene & allergen courses recently.

So.. your DD should be able to get a Management Referral to Occupational Health- it would be good if you could even attend the appointment with your DD. The doctor or nurse at Occ Health should suggest reasonable adjustments that her manager can make & then your DD needs to have a meeting with her manager & an HR person to discuss those adjustments. Your DD will be protected under the Equalities Act because of her disability, provided she can carry out her role with the reasonable adjustments in place.
It’s only if she is still unable to carry out the role even with adjustments that they will go down the Capability route.
It would probably be very helpful to print off some information for her manager about FAS and the limitations your DD actually has. So they will be more understanding.
I also know that there is help available for people with disabilities to get into work, so if the worst happens and she loses her job, they can help her get a more suitable role. They have helped me, I accessed the help through the mental health team. I will try to remember the name of the service.

It sounds more akin to a care home than a hospital.
Unfortunately it sounds like the employer did do all the right things in training the staff previously when the role changed - you described her as a cleaner but her job title is facilities technician and it sounds like it includes a range of duties not just cleaning.

OP i think your daughter's first step should be asking for a training refresher to build up some confidence in this area

Are you in touch with any organisations that might be helpful to you for your daughter’s condition ? Where they can offer advice. The NHS website has some details. The National Organsation for FASD.
How was she diagnosed ? That may be important to establishing disability support. Her GP should have been able to provide some support over the years and did they refer her for assessments.
All of this will help in discussing her need for reasonable adjustments.

I would expect annual training updates in all the current duties. I've never heard of a facilities technician, I'll look it up.

Occupational health, not therapy, they can advise you. It wouldn't be safe for anyone to place a member of staff in a kitchen if they are unable to retain and use any equipment safely or safely prepare and serve food.

Yes, Occupational health. Apologies.

I would explain to her that a union is something that anyone working in a school or hospital should be a member of and that most people in those kind of workplaces consider it an essential part of her employment.

I'd like to think the NHS managers will behave logically.

1. Member of staff prepping food leaves
2. Managers struggle to find a replacement
3. They tell a good reliable member of the same team they may need to take over
4. They make no reasonable adjustments
5. Reliable member of team leaves under the pressure
6. The team is now 2 people down instead of 1.
7. They couldn't recruit 1 person, but now have to recruit 2 people
8. They are much worse off than they were before

That just doesn't make sense. I really hope they won't allow that to happen. You're clearly a strong advocate for her, and if you let them know she will leave if she can't do the job, I'm sure they will do what they can to keep her. Reliable staff are really hard to find, they won't want to lose her.

There might be someone else in the team who could do the food prep quite easily, they don't know until they ask. They may not realise that your daughter would struggle so much with the food prep.

Good luck, hopefully common sense will prevail!

It is a proper hospital. Ground floor and lower ground are all proper departments as you'd expect ie. Outpatients, Radiology, Physiotherapy, Phlebotomy, Minor Injuries etc. The 2 wards are on the 1st floor.

Good point. I will. She will be more likely to accept if I apply for her. A lot of the time she says no when she really means I can't.

We got in touch with a clinical psychologist via an FASD support group. He assessed her and did some testing and eventually gave us the diagnosis which we paid for. When we adopted her no mention was made of alcohol misuse just drugs. We struggled for many years trying to figure out why she was behind and unable to learn like her peers. Noone in post adoption support, school or even CAMHS spotted it. No GP support either, shocking really. It is much more widely recognised now.

Thank for your post. I really hope so. They do struggle getting staff for the afternoons. Mornings seem easier to fill. She asked to move to mornings a while ago and she has noticed new staff starting mornings and when she questioned they were 'err ahhh we didnt know you wanted mornings' mmmm a likely story!

Sounds just like the hospital in my small rural town. I think it’s quite a different model from big city hospitals where there don’t tend to be these outlying satellite type hospitals.

I imagine they don’t realise how much stress this is putting on her, good hospital cleaners are worth their weight in gold and hard to find. I imagine if you help her email her manager they will do what they can to facilitate this. Let’s be honest it’s not even an adjustment it’s continuing the job she’s done for 6 years.

I'm really hoping . She's come home with the email address and has told her supervisor its not that she doesn't want to do it, its that she can't due to her diagnosis.