Advice needed - mental health

[notgivinga]

My son in law is suffering with what appears to be a breakdown and has managed to secure some telephone counselling. He has been told that there is no longer a job for him in his place of work after Xmas even though the counsellor has written to the company explaining the situation. Apparently he was asked on numerous occasions in work whether he was ok and just told them that he was worried about his dad who has terminal cancer but failed to mention that he has problems sleeping and feels very anxious all the time.

To cut a long story short he received an email 3 weeks ago telling him not to come back to work after Xmas as there would be no job for him. This was before the counsellor wrote to them , telling him they will pay his Dec salary and he is able to keep the health insurance policy for 3 months. This morning he has received an email telling him that he will receive a Tesco voucher as a Xmas present.

This all seems very odd to me, he ensures me he did nothing wrong in the job but was obviously not fully involved in what he was doing. If they were within their rights to terminate his employment would they be paying him and extra months money and a Xmas bonus.
He is coming up to see me tomorrow and wants some help with emailing the company back. Whether he actually wants to keep the job at the moment I don't know but doesn't want to burn his bridges when hopefully he will feel better in a few months.
Any advice would be greatly received and I'm sorry that this post is so long

I a little more information would be needed to comment properly.

How long has he worked there? If it under two years then employment protections are somewhat limited, but there is still protection from discrimination and automatically unfair dismissals. Your post does not suggest that either of these apply.

I am not exactly sure why you are mentioning the anxiety / breakdown unless you are thinking this could be a disability discrimination matter? I would say that it is not. Anxiety is not necessarily going to be considered a disability but even if it were in this case, the employer cannot be found responsible for disability discrimination if they have not been informed in advance of a disability, telling them at the point of termination is not sufficient.

If he has been there for two years or more then there needs to be a fair reason for dismissal, such as redundancy which should follow a consultancy process. Or it could be due to capability but this should also follow a fair process. There are a couple of other fair reasons, if he has been there for more than two years, what fair reason was given?

Just to add. I wouldn’t presume that a Christmas bonus means they are acting unlawfully, I would take it that they are being nice and it sounds like they are simply paying his notice period.

Thank you for your reply that was very helpful as I know nothing about employment law. He has only been employed for a year so think he will have to send a polite email back thanking them for the opportunity and leave it there. Hopefully he will feel better soon.