Sensitive issue: miscarriages

[catinshorts]

I'm aware of how sensitive and triggering this enquiry may seem but I'm wondering whether anyone can offer any insight. I'm a single woman with no children and no personal experience of this situation and I'm concerned that all the mothers in HR will glower at me for raising this.

I manage several small teams, each of which has its own manager who reports to me. One of these managers has raised concerns about an employee who's been with us for just short of 21 months and in that time has had four miscarriages and has taken a combination of sick leave and bereavement leave each time.

Most recently last month she miscarried on the last day of her holiday abroad, was unable to fly back as planned and eventually returned to work after eight working days. Her manager reports that colleagues screenshot social media images of her out drinking and sunbathing, apparently still abroad in Turkey during a second week there. Those pictures have since been removed from social media. Her colleagues believe she is faking. They say she said a couple of times prior to going away that she and her partner had booked a fortnight's holiday when it was known she'd only booked a week's leave from work. When picked up about it she said it was a slip of the tongue and they were only going for a week.

After the second miscarriage and bereavement leave around this time last year HR invited her to attend a meeting for a welfare/ return check. The company offers counselling after a bereavement. Her manager can find no evidence that she attended a meeting or that HR followed up. Her performance has been just about good enough. In other circumstances she would probably have been put on a PIP but the fact that she has been multiply bereaved has complicated the situation.

Her manager is unsure what to do and has handed the problem to me. My instinct is to invoke HR on the basis of sick leave and concerns from colleagues and let them deal with it. Is this the best strategy?

If she’s self certifying up to 5 days then she doesn’t need to prove it. Unless an employer requires proof of bereavement for any staff member to use bereavement leave, and proof of sickness for any staff member to have sick leave then requiring this for miscarriage would likely be discrimination as you are treating a staff member differently, and less favourably due to pregnancy. Fit note is needed if she goes over 5 days sickness absence but that’s standard and would apply to any staff member.

Why can't you start asking for sick notes or prove if someone has regular periods of self certifying? For any reason? Say more than 2 in 12 months? So provide on third session.

Apply to everyone obviously. Usually done as -if you don't it's ssp? Rather than normal full pay.

Our contracts say full pay when sick is at companies discretion to cover people who calk in sick very regularly.

You can ask but GPs can refuse to provide it if it’s less than the self cert period.

True.

But then you usually face the option to revert to ssp for anything after the 2nd period of sickness in 12 months.

Puts people off if not paid when off sick.

It does but what if someone is genuinely ill. Has a disability, for example. I think it’s all very well saying we won’t pay you company sick pay unless you produce a doctor’s note - which they can probably get but will have to pay a fee - and then you have someone with a condition covered by the equality act (miscarriage would be one of these) then I think you would struggle to enforce it without legal challenge. I certainly would have challenged it.

But would they not have to prove that they were pregnant to be covered by the equality act?

Proof’ has a wide scope. It doesn’t necessarily mean documented irrefutable evidence of a pregnancy. I’ll explain.

The requirement is that you inform your employer of your pregnancy. Once you do that then the legal protections apply.

The first bit of proof HR ask for is the MATB1 form. You get that after 16 weeks - in reality this is often 18-20 weeks. Before that you have a booking appointment. This is normally around 8 to 10 weeks.

Most miscarriages happen at 7 weeks - before any formal medical proof is recorded. PP mentioned that often this is diagnosed at a scan (12 weeks ish) but it can also be an unexpected rush of blood and pregnancy tissue. If your GP refers you to the EPU this can be several days away. If you miscarry on a Friday night you might not be seen in the EPU until Tuesday. If you’ve had a complete miscarriage then there’s no pregnancy seen on a scan. HCG might have already left your system (I had a negative test pretty much right away with my first pregnancy loss).

You might have had a miscarriage before, and decide you don’t need to seek medical attention. This is very common. Many miscarriages aren’t recorded because usually you won’t need any treatment (There is a list of symptoms that should get checked listed on the NHS website).

So you might be able to prove that you sought medical attention but this isn’t proof of a pregnancy. You might not bother because often people don’t. That’s not proof that someone wasn’t pregnant.

You can register a miscarriage after the fact with your GP and this will be added to your medical history - no evidence needed other than you notifying your GP. At the time I was referred to the recurrent miscarriage clinic the 3 miscarriages you needed for referral only got ‘counted’ if you’d received treatment from the NHS for that pregnancy prior to miscarriage. Now there are memorial certificates available and although you need to provide your doctor’s details to get one, you don’t need to have a record of that miscarriage on your medical records to get a certificate (I believe the request is then noted on your record but I could be wrong and I can’t find anything that confirms it or not). These could be classed as proof. Sometimes you’ve just got to trust your staff.

True it's tough one to prove as such. But at some point an employer may ask for something to show it's actually happened -or why someone needs a week off sick/bereavement regularly. Same if they allowed you weeks off for parent dying then another and then person x. They may say -you can have time off but not paid.

It's possible one person is ruining it for all. Or maybe not.

But having to stay an extra week abroad is something that should have prove attached somewhere -did a doctor advise she could not get back on the plane? And crucially-ample evidence that the return flight was booked after they arrived.

Would it be equality discrimination if someone is asked to show some evidence of that holiday booking? Or refuse to pay salary during that time as unauthorised absence. A tribunal surely would request sone support -without that -on the balance of probabilities-it looks like a lie. And any true claimant would just supply that evidence rather than "say "you have no right to see any evidence"

Interesting from an employment law point of view. A difficult one to balance.

No it’ not discrimination to ask for proof of the holiday booking showing her original return date. It needs to be treated clearly as a separate issue to that of the miscarriage and I’d present it as a requirement for anyone who failed to return to work on their planned date due to unforeseen events, whether this is medical, due to airline delays etc or act of god. I wouldn’t be introducing he said she said, it’s just a requirement. If anyone else is on the booking they can censor that information.

Get OH report, for welfare reasons. If the miscarriages are genuine she's going through an awful time and you want to support her. If not hopefully she'll realise she's been rumbled.

Asking for proof of original booking is also an option but it will make it obvious the trust is non existent.

You can say that it's been reported that she had said that she had booked for 2 weeks and that "the issue needs to be cleared up" for everyone's sake.

No one legitimate would object to showing their return flight. It would have cost a bomb to change flights/buy a single one last minute.

And yes you'd be consistent for all staff who exceeded holiday asked for but how often does this happen? People would generally take the extra time as unpaid if caught up in something that kept them in holiday longer.

I saw your post and felt I had to comment.

I suffered 5 miscarriages in two years. Two I was in hospital for, the other 3 I managed at home without need for medical help.

For the 2 I was in hospital with I had 4 weeks and then 2 weeks off (signed off by GP). Where I worked, miscarriage came under pregnancy sickness so not under the normal sickness policy. The other 3 I did work through (god knows how) but I was working fully at home which I think helped.

I have to say, miscarriage is such a traumatic thing to go through, especially multiple times. For the whole two years and for about a year after, I felt although I wasn’t really living in this world. It’s hard to explain but it becomes your whole life, everywhere you go you see babies, pregnant ladies etc and it’s really hard to get through the day. You also have to be happy for friends etc that announce pregnancies / give birth. You have the stress of planning when you can next start trying and then you just live in a cycle of period, try for a baby, wait. Over and over and if you do get a positive test it’s almost worst than a negative as you’re scared of another miscarriage. I could go on and on trying to explain but unless you have been through it, it’s impossible to fully understand. Also, when I was in hospital, I was on the same ward as ladies who were about to give birth. Also our EPU was right next to the maternity ward so I would be going for weekly scans and then seeing ladies and their partners walking passed in early labour. Mentally it’s horrific, that’s before you even get to the physical symptoms.

I imagine the physical and mental trauma is a lot for her right now and I can completely understand how work is probably less of a priority for her. Having said that, if it’s causing a problem then you definitely need to speak with HR.