NHS recruitment - withdraw offer due to pregnancy related sickness levels?

[Mamatobaba]

Hi all,
first post on here, I am hoping someone can put my mind at ease!

I have applied for a job role within the NHS, I am yet to hear back on whether I will be offered the job. If I am fortunate enough to be offered the role, I am concerned about my sickness levels from the past 12 months.

I had to take 6/7 months off work due to pregnancy related sickness (my body did NOT agree with pregnancy!). It was one long period, so only 1 episode of sickness but about 200+ days.

My question is, although pregnancy is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act, could this impact my chances of a final offer of employment? Will they give me a chance to explain my sickness level? There wasn't an open opportunity to address this in my application or interview.

Whilst I'm here, does anyone know if they ask old employers (the one before who I'm with now) my sickness levels?

thank you in advance for any advice you can give!

It's rare but not impossible to ask previous employers questions. But your employer should not disclose pregnancy related sickness as it should be accounted for separately. Given the circumstances, even if they did I would expect (although I am sometimes disappointed in my expectations) that the NHS would be somewhat more sympathetic with that as it is an extraordinary circumstance. It shouldn't affect an offer. and I would be surprised if it did.

It should be fine, it is a single explainable episode that didn't count towards sickness anyway. I got my recent nhs job after being off sick with my mental health for a single period of 5 months the previous year. All they did was make sure I spoke to Occupational Health as part of the starting process to make sure they could support me and it was never mentioned again. Good luck

I had this scenario earlier this year. I was off sick for around 3 months with hyperemesis and then another week later on in my pregnancy. My old manager did my reference, she had to put it my sickness but said it was pregnancy related. Everything was accepted, wasn't even brought up x

It's one off explainable. They're looking for patterns and ongoing themes. It's fine OP. Congratulations on the new job

So would seven individual episodes count against an application? Five for migraines but mostly around 2023 before I was put on the right medication?

Do you always get to speak to occupational health to explain?

very rare to not get a job in nhs because of sickness record i understand.

Pregnancy related sickness can be recorded but it has to be dealt with differently than other sickness types. It can't be held against you towards warnings etc and I don't think it would ever be held against you at an offer of employment.