To be absolutely fed up with NHS staff off sick

[njg616]

I manage a small team and have had several staff take the complete biscuit with sickness.

One took a year off before retirement - we couldn't recruit until she handed in her notice.

One got a similar job while off sick for 6 months, she then went off sick in her new job

Another got the job 'to cover her bills while she recovered from bunion surgery'

Currently I have someone off sick with a history of long and short term sickness. Has been off sick for half the time she's been in her post- 6 months. I follow policy, and refer her to HR who keep giving her more chances.

I find many staff use their NHS salaries while off sick as their sponsorship to do other things in their lives. This cannot be a good use of public funds especially with how things are at the minute.

These staff would not last a minute in the private sector. Sickness records don't seem to matter which to me is a huge indication of a person's commitment and reliability

yeah, okay. 😂😂😂

Dont get me started on the mat leave followed by annual leave followed by six months sickness. I can think of three people who have done that.

my own experience with cancer last year is six months chemo, then radio then recovery and many appointments. It took a year. I was incredibly greatful. Ive said to my manager that if it happens again I will try to work from home. She wouldnt entertain it said there wasnt a need for my grade to be working from home. That makes me nervous because I dont want to be off sick again for a very long time.

There are serial piss takers who absolutely milk the system with weak management letting them get away with it

but also there are trust and management that rule with a rod of iron and kick in discipline procedures at the first opportunity

it really depends where and what trust you work for

just because it doesn’t happen where you are doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen

Exactly, so what’s your point?

The OP claimed that a new starter relied on the generous NHS sick leave for her bunion surgery. Given that the new starter only got one month’s full pay and one month’s half pay, I called bullshit on the story.

Unless of course the employee can WFH and then be driven into work by someone else, like my colleague.

I am sorry you have been so sick and that your manager isn’t perhaps as flexible as she could be. I know someone who was allowed to work one week in three during her chemo - working during her “well” week. It seems her manager and their HR were sensible and creative enough to come up with something that worked for my colleague and for the service she runs.

Not sure about your point about maternity leave. Annual leave is accrued during maternity leave, and some people are unfortunate enough to then get sick, maybe with PND. Some of them may indeed be malingerers, but it’s a bit of a stretch to say they all are. I’ve worked with/managed people in both groups. The malingerer was eventually dismissed on capability (i.e. capability of putting in a full week’s work) grounds.

@Alexandra2001 your DD's trust is appalling! Mine did not count COVID sickness towards sickness absence during the years of the pandemic, because staff caught it because they were working with COVID positive people and insufficient PPE.

Well, their/UKs loss, she couldn't be happier work wise in Aus, misses family here though but is home next month for a few weeks. woo wee!!!!

She didn't start work in the nhs in 2020, where that was the Trusts policy, it was in subsequent years, after vaxx became available, one thing that screwed her up was being to keen! she'd test negative twice, rush back to work when not 100%, then have to go off sick again.
Her Band 6 explained this to HR but they just went ahead anyway at the time she was quite upset about this but it was the flu incident that really pissed her off, they knew there was no FFP3 for her, as she hadn't had a mask fit but they still sent her in anyway.. this was way after PPE shortages, then penalised her for it.

People who want more restrictive sick leave, in line with some in the private sector are fucking idiots, without a clue as to what patient facing staff have to deal with, often for very low wages but they still want to take some more off them...

That was national policy. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Understood, but our management are still allowed discretion when their team members hit trigger points because of being exposed to COVID.

Wow.

I was on sick leave before maternity leave but don't let that get in your way of having a go at those less fortunate than yourself. Be thankful you haven't had to be in that situation. That was years ago but it couldn't be helped.

That's fraud. Plain and simple.

I'm NHS over 30 years. Everywhere I've ever worked I've known people factor in 'sickness' to help cover some of their school summer holiday childcare.

You better take your own advice then 😂

Now that's what I call sick.

No, I think it might be my manager who took two weeks off because her dog died and she was sad, but started hassling me 2 days into my stay in intensive care about when I would be completely fit for work, and then tried to have me managed out when I asked to come back 0.8fte due to life-limiting illness

Less fortunate?..🙄🙄🙄clearly you never read my post.

and actually the three Im thinking off two never came back and got other jobs the third came back and repeated the process straight away. Im talking about people I knew and worked close to so please dont accuse me about not having empathy with colleagues with PND etc. this wasnt the case here.

I'm NHS, 24 years. Nowhere I've worked have I known staff do this.

There you go, power of anecdata.

I've only known a few NHS staff really. All but one treated sickness leave as an extra perk.

Are there official stats on sickness rates. Do NHS get better sickness pay than the rest of us? It makes no sense if they're on equally rubbish terms.

The National sickness rates for the NHS is 5.6% which equates to 92.5 hours. Over 2.5 weeks each person each year.
What this hides of course is many staff that take little or no sick leave and others taking massive amounts.
Also what it does not take account of is the huge impact of child carers leave. That is up to one week and often we find that as staff have spouses/partners, they get two weeks as the leave is per staff person, not child. They also seem to have children as sick as the parents!

The reality is if properly managed, it would reduce. One team I took over indirect line management of had horrendous sickness. Clearly was being added onto their 41 days annual and bank holiday leave. I implemented the sickness monitoring procedures for virtually the whole team ( which hadn't been) and within two years sickness had reduced from 9.5% PA to 1.5%

The reality is this would never be tolerated to this extent in the private sector. The reality is some people want to work for the NHS, particularly in non clinical roles exactly for these reasons. Extremely flexible working (often not meeting the business needs), carers leave and very tolerant sick leave enforcement

@MarieG10

You sound like the HR people in my DD former trust & one reason why so many are leaving the NHS.
Just asked her if a lot took unnecessary sick when she worked there, she said "Nope but staff get hit, stressed out, catch bugs patients come in with, so subject to a whole lot more than private sector" she also added that in the private sector, many people can be allowed to work from home with a mild illness, NHS front line cannot, they have to take time off & if you want PS sick rates, maybe pay PS levels of pay?

1.5% is exceptionally low, less than half the private sector rate, so would be fun to now how you cut to that level, bearing in mind most Trusts would allow quite a bit of sick leave over 12 months, with 3 separate illnesses, before sick procedures kick in.

pointythings ....that they've admitted to

i find it is a low number who try it on, surely in all walks of life, no good comparing to other sectors imo

@tokesqueen that I have seen happen - and I've worked with many many colleagues with school age children. Still anecdata.

I really wonder about these threads in an election year.

What I also notice from these threads is people's eagerness to race to the bottom. Instead of aspiring to decent paid sick leave for all, it's a constant desire to drag those who have good terms and conditions down to the shit conditions everyone else has. It's all about envy, not about the desire to make things better.