Why is it so hard to get rid of NHS staff who take the pi** with sickness

[Danijane]

Just wondering why NHS trusts don't seem to get very firm on staff who take the piss with sickness leave?
I work on a busy admin team where staff often say "ill just go off sick if X happens..". Like going off sick (often longterm) is the solution to any problem at work.
Theres 1 girl on the team (single mum with no local family in UK) who goes off sick for several weeks every school holiday period. She's just done it again as her daughter finishes school this week. So that will be likely a couple of months off with "stress".
Another woman on the team who lives with her single mum daughter and 2 young grandkids also "gets sick" every school holiday and festive period, also for several weeks at a time. Her daughter works high power job including lots of travel.
Our manager recently said how nice it would be get time off over Xmas for a change and I asked why not book it then. She replied that she can't because the other senior on our team will be off sick... She always is off sick at Xmas but manager is frustrated as said can't do anything about it, even though it's a clear pattern.
How can this be the case? I mean why can't management do anything about persistent piss takers?
Is this an issue right across the NHS?

Of course it is

Yes people take the piss. I work in a CMHT, and find that once someone is off, they take the full 6 months, knowing they'll get full pay. It's the knock on impact on the rest of the team that sucks. My team at one point had very high sickness levels, and I was the only B6 nurse most days. So I'd constantly be trying to cover duty alongside my caseload.

The ultimate impact is that there are times it made me genuinely unwell because of the stress, and I'd end up needing a couple of weeks because I couldn't sleep and was hysterically crying to management everyday.

The only time I've gone off long term (I had 3 months) was through pregnancy. It exacerbated my OCD and I was struggling anyway. I think in a normally staffed and supportive team I'd have coped, but I knew I couldn't cope as things were. And that's because my mentally ill (I have OCD anyway, pregnancy just worsened it) pregnant ass was expected to cover everyone else with no rooms for sensible adjustments to reduce the stress for me, because everyone was off bloody sick!

Yes people take the piss. I work in a CMHT, and find that once someone is off, they take the full 6 months, knowing they'll get full pay. It's the knock on impact on the rest of the team that sucks. My team at one point had very high sickness levels, and I was the only B6 nurse most days. So I'd constantly be trying to cover duty alongside my caseload.

The ultimate impact is that there are times it made me genuinely unwell because of the stress, and I'd end up needing a couple of weeks because I couldn't sleep and was hysterically crying to management everyday.

The only time I've gone off long term (I had 3 months) was through pregnancy. It exacerbated my OCD and I was struggling anyway. I think in a normally staffed and supportive team I'd have coped, but I knew I couldn't cope as things were. And that's because my mentally ill (I have OCD anyway, pregnancy just worsened it) pregnant ass was expected to cover everyone else with no rooms for sensible adjustments to reduce the stress for me, because everyone was off bloody sick!

It's systemic. HR is useless so managers need to put in significant time and effort to get rid of people, and it's basically too hard. Doesn't help when the Mangager is also lazy and useless.

Ex-NHS HR.

It’s not that hard. We had a tolerance of 3 absences in 6 months, 4 in 12, 10 working days or anything flagged as a pattern (eg day after payday, Xmas etc). Supported dismissals of several people per year (fairly small organisation) each year under these. But also woke up several others to the realities of taking the piss who sorted themselves out.

Newsflash: managers are there to manage. HR are a support function, not a hiring and firing function. We’re not there to protect you from the realities of management.

Oh god we must have the same colleague lol
Yep we have 1 who goes off every summer holiday but she isn't a single parent

This simply isn't true, the NHS have 3 and 8 day triggers for absences, written warnings and final written warnings.

If absences continue without good reason or if patterns of sickness are apparent ie at the start of every school holidays, they have all the tools to take action.

But the NHS, by its very nature, is going to have higher sickness levels, they are in close contact with people who have serious illnesses, do a lot of manual handling, get attacked & high stress levels.

I've managed teams in the NHS and I think it's impossible, because actually organisations are not interested in removing people who are performing poorly. I think there's an element of "scheme for full employment" about it. People are wracked with a feeling they have to support people's mental health, and we're all a big team, etc. etc.

One particular person took a YEAR off after her mother died. It had a massive impact on the team but when I suggested she was managed out I was shot down. (People come back after six months, work for two weeks, then go off sick again - it 'reset' the sickness clock.)

so you are the same? you're part of the problem

I ended up off sick for 4 months after totally getting burned out because I was covering 2 other people's jobs as well as my own. I managed both of them and everything I put in place to try to manage them was overridden by HR as our HR business partner was absolutely hopeless and probably should have been on a performance improvement plan too. It's not just those off sick although one of the problem people did mostly do that. Again when told she had to do something she didn't like. She'd been poorly managed for years before I had the misfortune to become her manager and she would try every single thing to not do her job. In some ways she was easier to manage because she was never fucking there and at least her absence was predictable. It was when she started refusing to train her own team it got impossible.
One of the people was an alcoholic who was drunk at work and making errors, had signed a substance abuse agreement and still turned up to work drunk. She didn't acknowledge or agree she had a problem and wouldn't get signed off sick so I had to repeatedly send her home refer to OccHealth and then assess all her work and correct errors. HR did absolutely fuck all even at the point she racially abused someone and blamed it on feeling unsupported. She got suspended on full pay and kept her job and was still unable to work and do her role 7 months later and I still had to try to find her work to do that she couldn't fuck up, check her work and then do her actual substantive role as well as my own. I cried every single night and was shaking with adrenaline every morning I was at work as I was under so much stress. It was intolerable and my directors request for a resolution was over ridden by HR as they were frankly terrified of a tribunal even though I could evidence the whole thing. That's what it comes down to with the public sector, they are shit scared of tribunals. Then you have mugs like me and others who just keep working harder than ever to our own detriment and stop the place falling apart.

Yes but you're there to facilitate the process as well as provide advice and guidance.

I actually think it's easier if you manage in the NHS to just accept that this is part of the 'benefits' and build it into your expectations.

I wish someone had said to me "This is just how we do it" because I'd have wasted a lot less time/energy stressing about how I was going to deal with the long-term sick colleagues. The culture just accepts it's part of the deal.

Happens where I work too within the NHS. It's really frustrating, but unfortunately how to HR prove that the employee is lying? They can't, if the employee has a Dr's note then they have to just believe it.

Public sector here too- in my opinion it is down to the following:
fear of being sued / lack of money to fight court cases and people to deal with grievances
lack of performance management- the public sector can only punish performance due to pay structure, so it attacks high performers who call this behaviour out. efficacy is rewarded with being allocated others work so people either leave / burn out / or quietly quit.

the public sector is vastly under staffed so believe holing on to people who are crap or take the piss with attendance is better than having no one- they know their leavers don’t get replaced.

there is no time or training to del with this- lots of emergency services don’t have a department who will deal with this so their line manger has to read up on the policy and then have the time to deal with it / record it and communicate it- at the same time as their own role which is impossible.

What’s that got to do with the price of fish?

Well basically you’re saying people are either lying to their GP or other Dr to get a sick note, or that the GP is issuing sick notes for no good reason. I think some people do at least exaggerate in order to get a sick note, and do this as a regular and normal thing.
Then it’s almost impossible to use the Long term sickness absence policy (NHS) because it has so many stages to work through before eventually you are supposed to be able to dismiss someone on capability grounds. In my experience, even when a staff member is clearly taking the piss, HR are very reluctant to support managers to enact the policy. It is massively frustrating. Conversely I have known staff members with genuine disabilities or long term health conditions who try their utmost to work, but still need more sick leave than the policy allows, get jumped on by HR.

Why?

I have kids, I work full time and have done since DD was 9months old, so does DH. We use childcare and annual leave. I have to book it like a military exercise and it requires lots of rushing around and long days and inconvenience. It’s also really fucking expensive and I save for it through the year.

My personal decision to have kids shouldn’t and doesn’t affect my employer or my colleagues.

Unless you've seen their sickness meeting records I suggest you keep it to yourself.

This. Stop with all the drama.

The problem is that nobody calls in "not genuinely sick".

Yes, sometimes it's obvious that somebody is lying; but there's a huge spectrum in the middle where you can't be certain. You never know somebody's full personal circumstances.

It can be a bit like a workplace equivalent of the 'Blue Badge Police' who will tackle people who use them who "don't look disabled to me".

It also doesn't help that procedures to clamp down always seem to adversely affect honest people, whilst the serial advantage-takers get away with it.

Like in supermarkets, where the robo-till will scream at you and accuse you of all kinds of imaginary infringements, whilst the people who go in with a massive rucksack and openly fill it with goods and brazenly walk out without paying are left unchallenged to get on with it.

It's so sad when a compassionate employer offers very generous sick-leave entitlement, so that those who genuinely need it don't end up suffering and falling into financial difficulties; but then half the people there see it and start to think they would be mugs if they didn't take advantage.

It happens everywhere and is very frustrating for the rest of us who have a conscience.

Newsflash: most managers in the NHS are clinical or technical with service responsibilities on top of their line management role. Many of them have neither the time nor the skill to successfully run a full disciplinary investigation with view to dismissal.

The NHS has failed to invest in back-room staff and back-room skills, and evidently has employed HR professionals with little understanding of this situation. In the private sector, HR does indeed take on a significant role in disciplinary proceedings, which makes a massive difference.

Agree. Those who don’t work in nhs don’t understand. It’s rife.

It’s all public sector jobs though not just nhs it’s almost impossible to sack someone. A lady at my work is off for 2 months every year for various ‘ailments’ it’s like clockwork. Nothing is done apart from hr having a word. They need to change the rules: