Stage 2 sickness

[Pookie22]

How did you get on ? I have been employed by the NHS for 12 months , I took a few days off at the beginning of Feb as my dad was terminally Ill and he wanted to come home instead of going into a hospice my mum is elderly & I am a only child so we had to put provisions into place i.e. - meeting with palliative care team & Macmillan nurses etc it was a lot of information to take on board we had to have specialist equipment delivered I didn't plan to be off for so long , I took it as sick leave as no holidays left my dad came home on the Thursday & passed away on the sat , my mum fell apart so I needed to be there , to arrange the funeral etc, and to grieve - I took 3 weeks off in total ( sick leave ) i have been placed on to a stage 1 at work - had to take the day off today as I went in at 8am with a banging head came home at 10am as I kept throwing up - and generally felt poorly . I am stressed about my sickness now as it will escalate . Can I appeal the stage 1 ?

So sorry to hear about your dad, does your work not have some kind of special or compassionate leave that would have covered the 3 weeks rather than you having to book sick? My work offers it paid then unpaid dependent on the tine scale.
Are they aware of what you have been going g through.
Big hugs to you xxx

The time off with your dad wasn’t really sick leave you should have spoken to your boss and taken it as compassionate leave or unpaid that is propably why they have put you on this.

Although if it’s like where I’ve worked before it’s been the amount of time off and the amount of times it happens

1 stint of 3 weeks is ok but 15 days off at different time rings alarm bells. I wouldn’t worry about it until your boss calls you in for a meeting about it as that’s when they are concerned

Did you have a fit / sick note from your GP covering the 3 weeks off? I presume you did as anything more than 5 days requires a note. The 2 incidences of sickness in a short period may well be enough to trigger management under the policy. You need to look at your Trust's Sickness / Attendance Management policy which should be available to you quite easily

Sorry to hear about your Dad OP.

You would normally have the right of appeal at stage 1 but there would have been a fairly tight deadline (10 days or similar) from the issuing of the stage 1 letter/outcome to put your appeal in, so if this has passed you probably officially don't have much recourse to try and get at least some of the days off after the bereavement re-classified as compassionate or unpaid leave - in hindsight you could have asked for this at the time rather than going off sick but understandably work wasn't the first thing on your mind.

But you can always give it a go, perhaps speak to your line manager if they are a normally sympathetic person?

Your stage 1 letter should also have told you what their expectations were and the trigger for moving to stage 2, some trusts do say that even one more episode of sickness will be enough to move to stage 2 once you are already on stage 1 I'm afraid, harsh though that seems. But there is usually an element of manager or HR discretion rather than it being a cast iron rule, and if you are able to argue that the first episode was a one-off related to your bereavement and not unreasonably in the circumstances, and the second an unavoidable gastro issue, but you are confident you won't need any more time off (and then try as hard as you can to stick to that), then hopefully they will agree to leave you on stage 1. Then if you have no more sickness in the next 6-12 months there'll be nothing more to worry about.

Good luck!

Are you in the union pookie22? I would advise joining tbh I wish I had. The sickness policy in your trust will have information for you but your manager should use their discretion. My advice would be that unless you have a limb hanging off, do your very best to get into work because the stress of the Bradford score hanging over you will make you feel much worse. I have a colleague who was off very sick for months and then had a few infections and now she has to come in to work looking like the walking dead if she gets sick....as do I. Mine is for planned surgeries but they want to take me to stage 2. Phone HR as well, I will be on Monday, speak to them directly about the situation and they may be able to help.

Thank you so much for all your words of comfort & help. I am not really worried about my sickness after all I wasn't really sick my manager doesn't agree with the stage 1 but it is a trust policy I've had 2 periods of sickness since I started a year ago for minor illnesses. I just feel it was unjust of them to apply the policy at a vunerble time but I wasn't really thinking straight otherwise I would of asked about carers leave etc: thanks again x