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?

@Nannyfannybannyyour ward manager cannot ask for a stool sample wtaf. Legally or ethically

It did in the org that I worked for!

It’s definitely a thing in the NHS. I’ve worked in the corporate world before I joined the NHS and it just wouldn’t have been tolerated. It’s a shame because it causes a great deal of resentment in those who don’t take the piss and go off sick to see others who do getting away with it. I’ve been at my current place of work 4 years and one of my colleagues has had 18 months off during that time with phased returns and holiday accrual on top of that. I’d like to see much more draconian rules.

Tosh, plenty of NHS staff are dismissed for excessive sickness and as pp have said, a GPs note is required.

Most commonly reported illnesses are : Covid, Flu, stomach upsets, muscular skeletal, mental health.

Private sector sickness rate is 1.9% vs 2.9% for public sector, mostly caused by the NHS having a higher rate, 4.8% - but i guess if you re the sort of person who cannot see that NHS staff are in contact with a lot of very sick people with infectious illnesses - then i guess you will see them as lazy arses who should be sacked.
Moral is already rock bottom, addressing that would go along way to supporting staff.... but oh no! as always with the right, it is "bring out the 'stick... always the workers fault"

It’s actually not difficult to get rid of them at all. You’ve just got to have the willingness to do so.
As long as they take them through the process, occupational health involved.

Cmon-I work in the NHS and it’s a piss take.

If a manager complained about something like the OP’s situation to me or one of my team, they’d get told:

You have options. You can -

1. do nothing. Saves you time and effort but unlikely to fix the issue and I won’t have this conversation with you again in 6 months if you take this option.
2. go nuclear. Issue their P45 now. You have the right. There’s a legal risk they’ll take you to tribunal and I may not stand next to you if they do if I don’t think this was a good decision.
3. one of many other options which attempt to address the issue compassionately but with an outcome in mind which is legally safe.

It can’t have. It’s a national agreement and it’s a rolling year. You can’t come back for 2 weeks and have another 6 months of full pay.

Sounds similar to when I was a civil servant way back. Someone was off so long that half the staff didn't know who she was. She'd reappear every so often for just long enough to start getting sick pay again before vanishing. Then they brought in tighter measures and no one dared have a day off even if they were really poorly! No happy medium!

Ethel, I can assure you she did ask for a stool sample from anyone off sick to make sure it was nothing that could impact on the patient health, said woman gave her notice and left..my colleagues would often come to work ill because they were terrified of being reprimanded..

TBH, I wouldn’t tout those figures around as justification for the NHS. They’re terrible. And how many NHS employees within those figures actually do frontline patient care?

Do you think that people who work in, say, retail, construction, law, childcare or farming don’t do hard physical work, or take on big responsibility or have to deal with the public and the distressed and the anxious?

Not saying this doesn’t happen and the anecdotes I’m going to give amount to anything more than that, anecdotes.

I work in public sector (now, many years previously in private) and in the last 2 years have seen 3 colleagues managed out to ill health retirement (genuine, they needed to go but they wanted to stay in work, distressing all round), 1 sacked and 2 leaping before they were pushed for what could be generalised as ‘taking the piss’.

So it does happen, but it was an enormous amount of work for the managers with already too much on their plates to get it done.

Oh and to add to that, recruiting to fill those posts. Nightmare. Finding people qualified to replace them who want to come into this sector is really difficult. One of the posts is still unfilled after three goes at recruiting, there have been applicants but all wholly unqualified.

People off left right and centre where I work (Local Authority ) for long periods of leave (6 months full pay and 6 half)
some also do it before leaving and starting a new job
others do it 2/3 times a year usually stating mental health for 6/7 weeks at a time (which in my team usually means 2/3 women clashing with one particular line female lone manager and then going off with a hissy fit.
The rest of us hate it and that combined with those ‘working’ from home while doing full time fucking childcare increases our workload massively.
None of my kids or siblings and many of my friends get sick leave packages like this and unsurprisingly they are rarely off bar serious illness.
im so sick of it that when I have a knee op next month I will actually stay off the whole time the doctor mandates instead of WFH with an lap top for a few hours a day.
sod that - bloody piss take !

How do you know?

How about both?

It was like this when i worked for the NHS over 10 years ago! People constantly taking the piss.

@MurdoMunro It must be done though! It annoys the decent staff, it’s disruptive, it’s not fair for service users or tax payers. If they don’t work, they should face discipline and stuff the workload! It’s a situation few private companies face. It’s a state issue so those employers need to fix it. Most aren’t grossly underfunded if they were more productive!

How do you lot know they are taking the piss? Do you sit on their return to work meetings or do your managers tell you all the reason they are off?

NHS...I've got rid of staff for sickness and incompetence.

It takes ages for sickness if someone knows what they are doing. HR were frankly inconsistent and tbh I rarely involve them unless I have to because they extend the process and never resolve it.

Occy health just write what the employee says.. GP gives certificates to get people out the door. The professionally sick know how to time a recovery and come back on phased return....off again....occy health advice...phased return....reasonable adjustments.....off again.... and numerous meetings...rearranged...cancelled....to exhaust you. However I'm so fed up with the vast majority of staff who are so committed having to work harder to cover the workshy that I feel a responsibility to them to persist and make life difficult for the pia.

Before anyone piles in on me...I have also made major adjustments and given huge support to keep disabled staff at work. The difference is that they work hard at being at work.

The lazy professional skivvers get my devoted attention in being as much of a pia as they are. Eventually they leave.

The rest of my team love my approach. Firm, fair and action. It protects them and they know I'd fight their corner if they were really sick

The 'how do you know they aren't really sick' comments. You know. People who are well enough to do everything in their social calendar but poorly ...<croaky voice> .too poorly to work.... the ones who return to work at 6 months....we see you. You are capable of work which is proven by turning up when full pay ends. You are capable of work because you do similar activities in your social life. You just don't want to work and think the rest of us should cover you. Fuck off and get another job.

Obviously I tilt my head and say sympathetic things in your return to work meetings.. . 😉

AKA managing the work shy fuckers out

zaps the rest of the workforce picking up their shit
awful for morale in an already tough gig

I'd say it's excellent for morale as they know they won't have to work harder to cover the workshy. They also know I'll move everything to support them through genuine sickness.

There is a process but it is not very effective. In most NHS Trusts, Sickness is looked at over a rolling 12 month period. It is the number of periods of sickness that is as relevant in the early stages so a person taking three single days off within six moths would get a Level 1 letter - as would someone who was off for three lots of three weeks in the same period. It’s ridiculous really. Then the worker needs to not be off for six months to reset their sickness level. If some takes loads of time in one go at the same time every year, it is probably not escalating through the system.
Once people are off for more than six months within 12, then their pay is halved when they are sick. It takes ages to dismiss anyone - I have only known one case in about 30 years of working. The system is too easy to exploit alas.