Time off for ongoing medical appointments

[OnNaturesCourse]

My DH was diagnosed as type 2 diabetic last year however recently it's been spiralling out of control and he is under investigation for late diagnosis of type 1 and autoimmune issues.

He's been extremely poorly with his sugars averaging around mid teens but peaking at 33 😳 so he's pretty miserable and has physically been suffering too (headaches, fatigue, swelling etc)

He has only taken one sick day because of this - it was planned overtime and he had to take the day off as he had been admitted to hospital the previous night.

Recently he has had hospital and GP appointments as everyone scrambles to work out what is going on (he is on max dose of two medications and his body is still not responding) and medical personal are now looking into possible type 1 diagnosis and/or autoimmune issues.

The thing is these appointments are all during working hours as that is when the clinics run. His site manager at work is starting to get quite "arsey" about the time off. The site manager is outright complaining about the time off to others at his work place but never directly to DH, and the site manager is being very awkward/stand offish with DH. (once actually outright shouting at DH over a matter that DH had no control over) He has a threatened to remove DH from current role and pretty much depromote him, and now is refusing DHs overtime if he has been off during the week for an appointment.

(he has maybe had approx 4 or 5 appointments that have made him late to work, or have to leave early. Maybe 2 where he has had to have the whole day off for testing)

For background - DH works regular overtime every weekend. His line manager is outraged that this has been taken off him as the work DH does impacts everyone else's ability to get on with their work. Effectively it holds the whole job back if he is not there.

Now the site manager is saying DH didn't work the overtime he did (before the site manager decided he wasn't allowed to anymore...) and DH is having the fight for payroll to investigate time sheets etc to get the money he has earned.

My question is where do we stand with this?

Can the site manager really make DHs life hard because he has medical appointments/issues at the moment? The stress of it all isn't helping DH at all.

Considered going off sick on advice of GP but his work doesn't have sick pay so we would be reliant on the DWP sick pay and to be honest we couldn't live on that for any length of time.

We have contacted HR as above but have been rebuffed quite a bit with a blanket "will look into it" statement.

Diabetes is a disability under the equal opportunities act. Sounds like it could be discrimination. Ask diabetes charity or similar for advice.

"We have contacted HR"

"Where do we stand with this"

Are these just figures of speech or are you actively involved in this.

I think your DH should be entitled to reasonable time off for medical reasons. Maybe ACAS could help

Is he in a union?

I think it is frowned upon to be off sick or have paid time off but still do paid overtime in the same week. He will have to come to an agreement with HR and find out his right and the company's policy.

He needs to look at the leave and sickness policy - for instance where I work medical appointments are unpaid leave or you make up the time - unless they're related to a disability, in which case they're always paid.

He needs to talk to HR about having a disability, he needs an OH referral so they get a report saying 'this man is disabled under the EA 2010' they cannot then argue he's not, or they didn't know. The gov website has some examples of what is a disability, and one may well be diabetes, which might be helpful to take to them in the interim.

He should also call ACAS for advice and consider, if not actually raising a grievance, certainly having a conversation with HR using the words 'disability' 'discrimination' and 'bullying'.

In answer to a few questions raised

I say "we" as I am helping him in his communication with payroll etc

He isn't in a union

His contract is unpaid leave for appointments - which is what is he taking so far.

Happy with taking the unpaid leave - but feel it unfair regarding the OT restriction as its not sick leave, it's a medical appointment.

He can't take annual leave as his leave is set by company.

He is displeased at the unprofessionalism shown by the site manager who has been discussing him and his absence with others but not him directly.

What does his contract say regarding overtime? There is no right to overtime with my employer and absence during normal working hours would mean no overtime that week. Given your dh’s poor health at the moment, it’s probably not in his interests to be doing overtime right now anyway. Until he is better.

DH and the site manager need to look properly at what the impact of DH's leave is and how this can be managed. Obviously the appointments are important and of course the company should be allowing DH to take them, but I can understand why the manager is annoyed if DH is off when they really need him and then working overtime to suit himself. He's not doing anything wrong per-se, but definately annoying. Has DH every acknowledge that the appointments make it hard for the company? Not that he should apologise for them, but to be ensuring that he keeps up as much as can and is honest about what support he needs.

I'd agree that phoning ACAS would be the best idea.

I don't know if this helps but I also have a lot of appointments and they're across 3 different hospitals which is a fucking pain!

My circumstances are different but anyway.. I declared one condition at interview, the other 2 have come up since I started

Occupational health recognise I have a disability

Two of the hospitals can be done as phone appointments so I've swapped to those, one is every 5 months, one every 3 months
I need bloods every 12 weeks so I get those on a Saturday so to interfere with work as little as possible
Every appointment I send a photo of the appointment card/letter and say "I need to take 10-15 mins for this"

The other hospital is a new issue, I take annual leave for that or I work it back on the agreement that if they offer a late notice appointment I can drop everything and go (it's an 18 month wait list)
Doctors appointments I found a GP that does extended access 6-8pm and weekends

Are they not paying him at all if he works an extra weekend day?

or are they paying it as at the normal rate as he has taken a day off in the week?

I have been a T1 diabetic on insulin for most of my life.

Your husband has a condition which is a protected characteristic of the Equality Act 2010 and his manager is failing to make reasonable adjustments which means you or your husband can get unions or acas involved as he is desperatly ill right now with bg ( blood glucose) level of over 30 mmol and his health needs to be a priority to save his sight and his kidney function. So the health service need to stop dragging its feet, get him on in a basal bolus insulin injections which will bring his sugars down from the dangerous levels they are at the moment and your DH's employer are massivly negligent here I mean the fact he'still working, let alone working overtime is an absalute miracle.

So contact Acas or a union.
If he starts to vomit, which is a sign of diabetic ketoacidosis ring 111 and they will send an ambulance.

Unfortunately when ill health comes employers can come down hard too, making a bad situation even more stressful.

My, previously perfect employee, niece unfortunately now has a couple of disabilities, one life threatening, and every time she is hospitalised has to also go through another disciplinary, she has been blue lighted to hospital 4 times this year with life threatening incidents and her workplace tells her when she phones in after being in resus in A+E it is "inconvenient".

Your dh should join a union as soon as possible as he might need them for support. My niece knows it is likely she will get fired eventually and with her recent record may struggle to find another job, but the union has been very helpful at each time.

Good luck.

Thanks all.

I will look into points made!

Further information -

1- his site manager is disputing his overtime that he worked prior to him being banned from doing overtime so technically withholding his earned money, DH isn't fighting against the no more overtime rule per say just the fact the site manager has bodged the time sheets in what we can only see as spite.

2 - DH doesn't work OT to suit himself. His line manager requests this weekly and DH is happy to do it. But site manager now says no but only for DH. A lot of the time if DH can't work it neither can the rest of the team as they rely on him to do certain parts of the work before they can do theirs.

3 - DH does acknowledge the impact his appointments have on his work and takes the minimum amount of time off, and ensures his work are aware of the appointments as soon as he is so they can arrange a temp/agency cover (for the above reason that it can hold the whole team back)

4 - the main issue DH has seems to lie with his site manager, who is one level above his supportive line manager. The site manager belittles him, shouts at him, talks about him and his medical/personal issues to others and seems to frankly go out his way to make life awkward and harder than needed. Often seems to be willing to spite others too just to make a point with DH (ie stopping his OT resulting in stopping others and the work progress too...then complains the work isn't done fast enough)

5 - his work is aware he is diabetic type 2 as he is required to undergo annual health checks in order to be declared fit for his job and various licences he holds. He has also made them verbally aware of his current ongoing investigations through his line manager (I will push him to put this directly in writing to HR too)

6 - he has only recently been given his own diabetic nurse contact who has been absolutely fantastic in bringing all investigations to one point contact etc so we do hope this will speed up the process and also limit the appointments etc as previously there were 3 or 4 departments all separately treating him.

Thanks again for all the input and advice.

I think it may be difficult to prove that the site manager is disputing overtime already worked as a malicious act. He will likely say it was a genuine error.
He should not be discussing anything about your dh’s absences with other colleagues. I’d be following the complaints procedure for that. Belittling, shouting etc is bullying. Complaint should go in about this too.
When dh has appts does he make the time back. This would be helpful for him when it’s unpaid and for work too. So if he has to take Friday afternoon off, does he make the time up on the Saturday morning ( as an example).

I do think overtime in addition to your normal working week when you aren’t well is a bad idea.

Sorry your DH is having such a horrible time - I hope the diabetes is controlled soon.

Many workplaces seem to have a rule that overtime can't be done if you've had time off during the week, for fairly obvious reasons. This is probably what's annoying the site manager, though his behaviour is unacceptable.

Would it be possible for your DH to sit down with his line manager and come to an agreement that if he's been off during the week he makes up that time first during the 'overtime' time (ie it would be standard pay) before going to overtime pay? They could both take the agreement to the site manager as a way to move forward and allow the team to do the work.

A complaint about the site manager's behaviour would be separate.

Unfortunately his work won't allow him to work back the hours missed, even in place of usual overtime.

I'm not too fussed about the overtime to be honest as I do believe DH is working too much given his condition at the moment but he is one of the people who believe work will fall apart without him. (and to be fair.. His absence does stunt production as previously stated but still his health comes first)

Should this dispute with overtime already worked continue where does he stand and what would be the next steps?

It is usual not to pay overtime if there are other unpaid days in the week or month.
If he has not met his contract conditions then overtime is not paid under this.

I don't know what his contract says if time off for appointments is paid or not or if they allow x amount of paid days?

I think the overtime is a separate issue because conditions vary from work place to work place.

As long as he is providing evidence of appointments and not taking a whole day off when a couple of hours is sufficient he should be fine.

He is contracted to set hours during the week.

Anything over and above this is time and a half, double on Sunday.

Right now it stands he is unpaid for the day he had off for the appointment and his overtime so the site manager definitely can't argue he is "working the time back" so to speak.

It is also stated in contract that overtime will be required and agreed in advance between line manager and employee.

He has worked there over 10 years, has great attendance etc and no issues.

Its just extremely frustrating that his site manager seems to be making life difficult.

OP, it's worth asking his diabetes care team if they could switch to virtual or telephone appointments. They should be able to offer these, unless something physical needs done eg bloods. And type 1 diabetes antibodies usually take 4-6 weeks to come back, so you might be waiting a while for answers.

Unfortunately they can't at this stage as it's all physical tests like bloods, circulation etc. His nurse, bless her, has tried to be really accommodating to his work hours but he works 7:30 - 16:30 and is in the opposite direction of the hospital so it's about a 60 minute one way trip to get one to the other.

His work have said today they will not accommodate any further appointments for the foreseeable - and he will face action at work should he take any more time off 😭

This thread reminded me of this. Get him to show this to his employer @OnNaturesCourse

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/05/courier-who-was-fined-for-day-off-to-see-doctor-dies-from-diabetes

Please check to see if any of the charities can give advice on employment rights. The threat of action at work could be disability discrimination especially combined with the bullying by the manager. I hope he gets everything stable and can look forward to fewer appointments in future but must spend the time now on his health.

https://www.diabetes.org.uk/living-with-diabetes/life-with-diabetes/your-legal-rights

What do his work do when he’s off sick or on holiday? Why can’t they do that?

Obviously he needs to go to the appointments but tbh expecting extra pay for overtime when he isn’t working his basic hours in a week is
something a lot of employers would push back on. Can he work the overtime but take it as TOIL to cover the appointments?

ACAS aren’t very good but maybe Diabetes UK or similar can offer advice if they have a helpline.

Hope he is much better soon

wtf?!

what do they suggest he does then?! Not have treatment for his diabetes?

unbelievable