Meeting with vocational rehabilitation consultant after sick leave

[occhealthreferral]

I have a virtual consultation with a vocational rehabilitation consultant after sick leave for anxiety. It's a third party company that my employer has referred me to. I've had to give permission for them to access my medical records and have been told the consultation will take around an hour.

I just wondered if anyone has any experience of this kind of thing and what to expect during the consultation and what kind of outcomes I can expect following the assessment?

Thank you

It's difficult to predict because there can be different approaches, but broadly they will want to talk about what triggered the anxiety, whether it was employment related, whether the employer needs to make any adjustments in your work and if you need any other support or help. They may be asked to comment on your fitness for work or your work role. And they may want to discuss a phased return.

Always ask to see the report BEFORE it goes to your employer in case there are mistakes, omissions or things you decide you don't want sharing with the employer.

@Jalisco Thank you, that was really helpful. I would never have thought to ask to see the report before it goes to my employer. I'm quite nervous.

I'm wondering whether work would be able to provide some kind of counselling as I think I have a lot of beliefs around work that I think have contributed to my anxiety.

Can you be more specific about what you mean by "I have a lot of beliefs around work". Some places can provide counselling, but it does depend on the employer. Mine, for example, has freely available counselling for employees as a standard - you don't need OH or a manager to "send" you. Others won't have any such service and/or can't afford it.

If you don't want to disclose on the thread, you can PM me.

I think I'm quite perfectionistic and put a lot of pressure on myself that is unnecessary. I worry a lot about making mistakes, for example at my worst state it would take me an hour to send an email out to an important client as I'd worry I didn't attach the correct attachments or made mistakes in what I had written. I also feel like I need to act 'perfect' which means in meetings I tend to clam up and feel unable to speak.

Ah. Well, I think in that case it will depend on the employer and the facilities they can offer – which is often relative to size although not always. The problem is that it doesn’t seem, based on what you say, to be caused by the employer. If it were you’d have a stronger argument, although even then you couldn’t force an employer to provide counselling if they don’t have it already in place. But you should discuss this with OH and see what they say – they can recommend it even if the employer doesn’t support it. It’s also worth thinking about whether there’s some self-help around – I’m not going to suggest NHS services because the waiting lists are so long that you’d probably have retired before you got an appointment. It might be worth thinking about whether you could afford a private diagnostic appointment with a mental health specialist – one of my friends did this for a similarly “inconvenient but not serious” mental health problem (and I mean that kindly, as in I know it’s horrible for you, but in the spectrum of mental health disorders, what you are describing is on the “milder” side), and once she knew what the problem was, not only did things make more sense to her but she was able to get loads out of self-help and planning strategies. It sounds almost like an obsessive-compulsive
/ imposter syndrome sort of thing – but I am not an expert. But ask OH – if you don’t ask you definitely don’t get!

I think checklists would help you. So for every job, create a list of things you need to check and work down them. An hour to send one email isn't great use of your time or the company's and a tangible list will help you feel more confident you're not missing anything.