Wanting to reduce my hours...

[StarbucksQueen]

I currently work 3 long days within the NHS - admin role, more sort of call centre environment rather than singleton post. My mum, who is in her 80s needs major surgery - she is not terminally ill, but will need care for quite a while, with follow up appointments.
I would like to reduce my days to 2 days, and perhaps pick up some overtime if mum was OK and didn't have an appointment.
I've read somewhere that you can now ask for flexible working to care for an elderly relative, and have noted the points I need to make. Just wondering if anyone has been successful in applying to change their hours under these circumstances

You can ask for flexible working for any reason, in fact you can give no reason at all. It's not a competition as to who has the most 'worthy' reason and the 'winner' gets to work what hours they want, it's about how well what you are asking for can be managed within the needs of the service/business. They can only refuse your request for one of a number of defined reasons which are all in line with that e.g. not being able to cover your hours, not able to recruit extra staff etc. I would hope within a call centre environment this might be easier to manage than other posts but it's not a given, obviously just a single day on it's own is not really enough for a job for someone so hopefully they will be able to combine that with bits and pieces of hours they have left over in the budget to make a new job and/or allocate those hours to somewhere else without having to rely on overtime or agency, but you should def emphasise on your application anything you can do to make this easier for them. E.g. any flexibility you can give on dates/times and so on. It's good that you might be able to work some overtime occasionally but they can't rely on that so don't focus too much on that point. Also are you asking for this as a permanent or temporary change? Def make that clear as obviously it changes what they have to do to cover your hours.

I know lots of people who work part-time for all sorts of reasons, not just childcare, including caring for elderly relatives, running their own businesses, health, winding down for their own retirements or simply because they fancy it so really don't worry on that front or feel you need to include lots of detail about your mum in your application. Just keep it business-like and focus on the impact on them and your colleagues, not you...

Thank you!.. staff work different contracts - some full time, some 3 days, some 2. They are recruiting again at the moment, so hopefully my request for a reduction can be taken into account.. but thanks for the pointers:)

I work in the public sector (not NHS). It must be because we have women staff of a certain age, but the majority of flexible working requests we get are because of elderly care.