Can the sack me for sickness absences connected to ongoing health issue?

[FriendOfTheCrows]

This is long but I will try to keep it brief.
I have worked for this company for eight years.
When I started working here they knew I had a joint replacement, it was done before I started working here.

Generally it's fine, sometimes I need to take a day off if i'm having a day.
This was never an issue previously, work have always been very understanding.

From the start of the pandemic we have all been WFH Full time, this was great for me because it meant I wasn't walking up and down the stairs multiple times a day to get to my office, so my days off sick was significantly reduced.

In August of last year I had an accident, I tripped down a couple of stairs and since then my joint has not been 'right'.
After the accident I had two months signed off sick.
My consultant is fairly confident he has a good idea what the issue is and I have been having lots of investigative scans, MRIs, x-rays, bone scans, et cetera for him to confirm his suspicion and figure out a treatment.

The problem I have is with the NHS being as it is my appointments are constantly cancelled or rescheduled.
I will get an appointment through, wait a month for it and then a few days before get a phone call saying it's been rescheduled and I'll receive another appointment, which then takes weeks to arrive and have to wait another month for the appointment.

It used to be that a bad day was my joint being really uncomfortable, I'd have difficulty moving and my sleep would be affected.
That is basically now the norm, a bad day is severe pain whenever I move.
it's really difficult.

In December I had a meeting with my manager and head of department (My former manager)
I met with the occupational health person and a report was done.
The OH recommended reduced hours and continued WFH which everybody agreed with and an action plan was drawn up, which was basically just to keep them updated.

Unfortunately because of all of the rescheduled appointments we are now in June and nothing much has changed.

Because of the way my hip is so far this year I've got quite a lot of time off sick.

Today I received an invitation to a "Informal Meeting about ill-health and sickness absence"
With my manager and head of department.

I've checked out my company policy and it basically reads like this is the first step to getting rid of me.
There was also a part about no right to a union rep at the meeting.
I spoke to my manager after I receive the invitation and he told me that he'd had a meeting with HR and they told him that we needed to do this informal meeting.

I'm so stressed out.
I know I've had a lot of time off sick,
I know it's not great for the company and I can see it from their POV, they are short staffed, my manager has hinted about me working a bit more than my reduced hours.
But even on the reduced hours and with time off sick I'm still getting all of my work done, my productivity hasn't dropped by that much.

Can they sack me?

You can still be dismissed even if you’re signed off. Been there, sorry.

I don’t know your financial situation and whether you have a feel for how long the healing may take - I took unpaid leave and then reduced my contracted hours as I was having serious health issues for an extended period. When I was ready My work were happy to support whatever contracted hours I felt I could do. I was then able to be flexible and could work when I was able to. Clearly may not be something you could do but I understand the stress you’re under and I hope it goes ok.

I'm an employer, OP, and can't even begin to tell you how stressful it is trying to manage someone who is genuinely ill but unreliable as a result of it. The needs of the business ultimately have to take priority, even if the staff member is a long term and well regarded employee.

There are no winners.

Ask your GP to refer you NHS choose & book to the hospital you had your hip replacement in, that way there is less chance of your appointments being cancelled & if you need anything doing you will get it done there. Are you in a union? If not try & join one if there is one at work, it will be worth every penny, if no union, speak to ACAS.

It sounds like this has been going on a while so I would guess your manager has chose to ‘no action’ on at least one occasion. Usually, at some point someone else will decide that ‘no action’ can not continue and the manager will have to take action. So it not clear cut that’s it’s 100% driven by your manager.

They have made reasonable adjustments. They have also not taken you down the sickness and absence route until now. That’s enough to say they have taken consideration, in my experience.

Signing in and doing no work and not being at your desk, if discovered is likely to result in dismissal. Could, potentially, be Gross misconduct.

Getting signed off may help. But they could still dismiss on capability grounds but it would slow the whole process down.

It sounds like they have been supportive. As op says, in these situations, there are no winners.

OP I understand your predicament as I’ve got chronic fatigue and have had periods of excessive absence, so I’m not coming from a place of not understanding.

You say your reasons for calling in sick are pain and reduced mobility - but do these actually stop you performing your role? If you’re WFH, can you just not move around? Do you have a laptop? Do you work from bed? Is your role solely computer-based or does it require physical movement?

When I’m having a period of exhaustion I don’t call in sick, I just work from my bed and sleep on my lunch hour. I’ve had to find ways to work around my health issues and be present at work. Sometimes I also get muscle pains and stiffness in my legs related to the fatigue which makes moving around harder but again I just spend the day on the bed or sofa. Could you do something similar?

Just echo a poster above, you've had masses of time off so your manager has 100% chosen 'no action' before now, probably more than - from your history and length of time off unfortunately both your manager and HRs hands will be forced with this one. Ultimately sick policies especially in large organisations can make exceptions/allowances up to a certain point, but there is a point where it becomes hard to justify keeping headcount for no output and unfortunately you are there.
And i would also gently point out here that the fact you havnt been called into informal/formal preceedings before now IS them making an adjustment due to along term condition, or this process would have started weeks ago. You're in a shit position OP and i really feel for you.
The best advice i can give is make sure you've written yourself a little timeline of Drs appointments, consultant appointments, appointmemts that were book in and then cancelled (and the date they were cancelled) with any backup letters you might have. At least you can keep it on good terms and if you show co-operation and efforts to try and mitigate the situation you might be able to hang on longer - the people in the meeting wont want to be doing this any more than you do, trust me.

I had my joint replacement done completely privately so that's no an option unfortunately.

I was referred to choose and book.

3 places listed but none had any appointments available. So l left a message in the box of the one l wanted as requested. Phone call 2 weeks later booking me in elsewhere. Choose and book is pointless. I’ve never been able to actually use it.

I have a laptop but i need to be physically plugged into my remote access device to get onto the work network, and a lot of my work requires me to use my pc.
I can do little bits on the laptop but not loads, and I'd be back and forth to the pc to test or check things.

When I'm having a bad day I'm basically constantly in pain, I can't get comfortable, I'm having to constantly change position, sitting at my desk is uncomfortable.
I'm also on strong codeine which make my really sleepy and spacey, I can't concentrate very well and find it very hard to focus on anything.

I don't mean I'd log in and just sod off back to bed, I would log in and try to do something, but if I'm not at my desk I'm limited as to what I can really do.
I already try to structure my workload around not so good days, so on those days any reports I have to right up get don't on my laptop in bed.

I don't take the day off lightly, I only do it when I've been taking painkillers for more than 12 hours and I know I can't sit at my desk without being in pain.
I've been worrying about my sickness record for a while so I intentionally try not to take the day off unless I feel like I have no choice.

Thank you.

I know it's shit, I know I've put them in a shit situation, if I could do anything about it I would.
But I will say that my productivity has not gone down and I'm still meeting all of my targets and deadlines, no adjustments have been made to my workload at all but I'm still getting it all done.

I do actually work outside of my reduced hours often, I just don't log it on my time sheet, I haven't mentioned it to my manager because I didn't want to open the conversation about increasing my reduced hours, but maybe I should.

I don't want to be letting them down and I absolutely cannot afford to loose my job.

I know it's irritating when people pitch in with advice when they don't have any knowledge or experience of the situation but what about proposing a sabbatical? It wouldn't solve anything but would put the potential dismissal on hold for a while and give you a chance to get your treatment. I understand you may not be able to afford it though. I also understand this might be a completely stupid suggestion!

It be extremely frustrating to be dismissed then for your health to improve after treatment.

I'm really sorry you are in this situation. I hope things improve for you very soon.

Thank you.

And thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has posted, I appreciate all of your advice.

I wish I could do that, but its not an option, I'm the main income in our house so can't afford to loose it.

You've all given me so much to think about,
I'm going to do the timeline, contact my gp today and try to think of a plan to help my attendance to tell them all about in the meeting.

I don't want to loose my job,
I know I'm lucky they have have been so flexible.
so I'm going to do what I can to show them I will do what I need to.

Thank you again.

I have been where you are in terms of the pain and impact. I wonder if there is any mileage in looking at alternative pain medications. At one point I was on patches - very strong ones at that. But they did work for the period I needed them before I could have my hip replacement (long story but they couldn't replace the hip that was actually disintegrating and falling apart, because I had broken my other leg and needed it to heal to support my recovery from the hip replacement!!!!) If you could better manage the pain, then that might help your attendance.

As I was reading through your thread, the only thing I could come up with was an unpaid leave of absence too. It could be the only way to save your job, your employer has made reasonable adjustments, they do not have to accept persistent occurrences of sick leave. A leave of absence until you get the treatment at least means you have something to come back to, you could otherwise lose your job anyway.

Separately I note you have mentioned a couple of times that you are still dong your work anyway. Take care with that, my takeaway is that if you can still do your job despite excessive sick leave then your job wasn’t a full job anyway.