Going off sick whilst working out NHS notice

[QueenofWhatever]

Hope someone can advise me with this. I work for a failing NHS hospital trust as a manager and handed in my notice on 27th June as I have a new job with a GP practice.

However my current line manager (a fellow team member who is acting up in more ways than one) is being inflexible and says I have to work my full three calendar months' notice as required by Agenda for Change. My work was handed over three weeks ago and I really have nothing to do but she won't let me go and I have no annual leave left. We work in a stressful, unhappy open plan office and there is nowhere to hide.

Last summer I was off for about six weeks with suspected chronic fatigue syndrome which then got better, so my GP thought it was most likely post-viral exhaustion. However it seems to have hit me hard again and I am really struggling and my GP wants to sign me off. He thinks I more likely have work-related stress as I recovered last time.

My question is this - should I go off sick? My new contract is signed and references done but I have five weeks notice left and over four weeks is classed as long-term sick which I don't want on my record. If I dragged it out and then went off sick for the last three and a half weeks, could she let me go early?

It's down to your conscience. You really cannot find anything constructive to do with 5 whole weeks? Couldn't you offer to be a spare pair of hands to another manager? Nothing that you've always thought I'll get around to improving that? Sorry you are adding fuel to the fire of why public sector staff are sometimes perceived to get an easy ride.

I completely agree with you, I think that's part of the reason I find this so stressful. I have been specifically told not to get involved in other parts of the organisation as the point of dissolving our team (we're on fixed term contracts) is that we were supposed to do all the planning and preparation for the clinical teams to implement.

I've tried arguing that they'll save several thousand pounds by letting me go, even more including the others who have resigned and are desperate to leave. Working here has left me so disillusioned about the NHS.

I can appreciate you're in a stressful position. I would throw a curve ball then and I say if I have to be here, I feel the need to do something useful, I'll use the afternoons to read the newspaper to anyone on the geriatric ward without visitors.

Firstly although it's a bit irritating, your manager is of course perfectly entitled to get you to work your notice. If your work is finished have you asked her what she would like you to be doing? What does she say?

Can you leave early without pay ?

flowery I've asked several times now what she would like me to do as I am an expensive resource. The only thing she has asked me to do this week is write some terms of reference for a weekly team meeting and pass some information on to other people in the organisation. Seriously, that's it.

However I'm unclear if going off sick would damage my prospects with my new employer. Could she approach them and tell them I'm off sick?

I do feel terrible and am not currently well enough to start my new job. I'm just worried about what could happen if I get signed off as my GP wants me to. He's clearly thinking of my health and is right in that respect, but in the current job market it feels risky.

iseenodust - I like your thinking!