Dismissed My Job Due To Absence linked to my Disability

[mummytippy]

Apologies for my lengthy post. I added a post (in May) regarding wanting advice for my employer to look to make reasonable adjustments for me due to my disability of hearing loss and Tinnitus. I had been employed by my ex employer 22 months. I had gone of work last November due to work related stress but was also waiting on an Audiology referral to come through. My employer was aware of all of my health issues. I had an attendance and wellbeing review (AWR) in May and was told I could discuss appropriate headsets at my next AWR which was scheduled for 18/6. I did contact the RNID and Tinnitus UK so that I could gather as much knowledge as I could prior to this. Before the AWR in June I had also bumped in to a colleague who has a similar hearing issue to me and he had recommended the headset he wears and sent me a link for it which I forwarded to my team leader. Just before the AWR, I then received an invitation for a capability assessment/attendance review to take place on 23/6. I contacted my TL and she said that it might not go ahead. It would depend on the outcome of the AWR with her. I had a fit note with a return to work date of 14/7 with recommendations from my GP. On the 18/6 I attended the AWR and tried to discuss my RTW but it was like the tone had completely changed. I took with me a proposed phased RTW plan to discuss, information from the RNID, Tinnitus UK and also evidence I had been speaking with an Employment Support Advisor via Talking Therapies but it all seemed to fall flat and was met with no interest. I was dumbfounded. I asked my TL to discuss my proposed phased RTW plan emphasising it would need to meet with her approval but she was not interested. She was really quiet. The note taker during the AWR was also a TL I knew (but not well) and he asked me questions which I felt were hostile. The whole experience was awful. I felt completely ganged up on. I did manage to show my white noise sound support and show how it sits behind my ear. The reasonable adjustments I asked for were: to sit somewhere quite on ‘in office days’ and for ad-hoc additional health breaks to adjust/remove my sound support. These were agreed to verbally. Where I raised the question about the link to the headset and the link I’d sent my TL, she said that she had been unable to follow the link and she asked why I had not just bought one. I explained that we were due to discuss headsets at this AWR. there was a cool response, my proposed phased RTW plan was merely photocopied and I was told the Capability/Attendance Review Hearing would still be going ahead. At this point in time I had 2 further medical appointments to still attend. One was my final session of CBT therapy due to happen the day of the hearing (23/6) and the other was with the Audiologist on 20/6 (rescheduled from 30/5 due to the Audiologist being ill). This was a follow up appointment to see how I was getting on with the sound support. Through my employer I had private medical cover. I had spoken with them at the end of May and a report was compiled. The report stated I have a disability and that my employer should allow me to trial a RTW after all my medical appointments were completed.
as I hadn’t like the time of the AWR and the Attendance Hearing was still going to go ahead, I sent a letter to my TL requesting a reasonable adjustment for the 2 requests above. This was never acknowledged. On top of this, when the notes from the AWR meeting were sent to me, they were inaccurate and incomplete. I replied to the email containing the Tale notes with my version of the notes asking for them to be recompiled. This was not done before the hearing. I had joined the Union but too late for them to represent me but they were able to give me basic advice which was if I wasn’t happy with the notes I needed to make this clear but I could attend the hearing to discuss my return to work. Unfortunately I didn’t receive a reply from the Union representative until after the hearing but the morning of the hearing I did send the hearing manager an email to ask her if it could please be rescheduled and why. She declined and because in the invite it had said that a decision on my employment could be made in my absence I felt I had no choice but to attend. My final session of CBT took place and ended an hour before the hearing. I did have a colleague attend and take notes. The hearing was a hideous experience. The hearing manager was very dismissive of my health issues and seemed to have an issue with my proposed phased RTW plan. I emphasised I was not happy with the notes from the AWR and that the RTW was a proposal. From the audiology appointment on the 20/6 the audiologist had put a new program on the device which was a hearing aid function and this was a significant improvement for both my hearing and Tinnitus. I was advised to have a period of ‘habituation’ to get used to this so explained this. In relation to the CBT my practitioner had advised a period of stabilisation following this (as she had also recommended I have some bereavement counselling too). I explained this and I must point out the final reports were not available at this time as still being typed up by the health professionals. I was just completely unheard. The hearing manager had also still been sending additional things into the appendices for this hearing on the 20/6 which was just one working day before the hearing (as a Friday) so I felt everything was rushed. The hearing manager ended the hearing at it was agreed I would speak with my GP to see if I could return to work sooner than 14/7 so I had agreed I would seek their guidance due to the recommendations above from the Audiologist, CBT practitioner and the companies healthcare provider which stated phased RTW at beginning of July after all appointments completed. About and hour after the meeting the hearing manager phoned me and asked if I could RTW on 30/6 and she would put 24/6 through to 27/6 through as annual leave. As I was away from 24/6 because my boyfriend had booked a surprise short break for me as I’d had a rough time and he knew I did not want to take any further time off work after returning, the earliest I could see my GP was on 30/6. I assured her I would seek their guidance on 30/6 and update her as soon as possible. I felt very pressured and told her this. I did this on 1/7 sending a revised fitnote in with a RTW of 7/7 with my GPs recommendations in the comments which included the habituation period and the stabilisation period and details of a phased return to work. I also added that I was open to speaking with my TL to discuss the plan for the following week during the course of that week. She acknowledged receipt, said she was still reviewing my case and that she would be in touch on 3/7 with her decision. I had logged in on my work laptop through the week, reading emails and preparing myself to return. On 3/7 I received her decision which was to dismiss me. She stated I had further delayed my return to work. I was distraught. I feel like I have been punished. I appealed the decision but the outcome remained the same. The hearing manager of the Appeal Hearing was a Customer Service Manager so I feel this wasn’t really appropriate either as no HR / Occupational Health element. I am now going through the Early Conciliation process with ACAS. I would like reinstatement as I do not feel I should have lost my job. My boyfriend (we do not live together) works for the same company (it is where we met) and I just feel completely isolated now as this has made things very awkward. I feel I have lost my career. My colleagues (our colleagues) who became friends now feel awkward. I’m now unemployed, obviously have outgoings and have gone from being in a secure position to the opposite and where I had improved my mental health to return to work, this has deteriorated again due to what has happened. If anyone could please advise me as I am so upset about all of this. TIA.

She said it was through private health insurance offered by her employer. So not occ health.

I'm not sure why she thinks that her employer would be taking HR advice from a doctor.

Have you had a performance review where the company has actually said you were good at you job? Or have you only had a probation review? Did you pass probation?

But your attendance was poor. How do they know it's not going to happen again?

@TigerRag Because the CBT I had received put me in a better place to deal with my role.

OP posted earlier "I worked from home with 2 office days per month."

@AngelicKaty I am the process of getting legal advice. The lead union representative has said that he will assist as best he can as said that had I been a member of the union earlier, my case would never have got as far as it did and I’d still have my job.

Surely you are now out of the three month time limit. You might have been good at your job but you haven’t done it in almost a year! Noone is irreplaceable. If you wfh why does it matter if your bf also works there. Did he get any sense that your tl was going down a dismissal route.

My fit notes initially had work related stress on them and then my tinnitus and hearing loss was added later. The company’s health care provider were aware of my disability and health issues.

I worked from home with 2 office days per month. I had to wear a telephone headset 100% office days per the time whether at home or in the office.

No, OP's own GP was issuing her fit notes. Her employer's OH provider (seems like a third party supplier?) wrote two medical reports about her for her employer.

No, she's not. The deadline is 3 months minus 1 day from the date of dismissal (i.e. 3rd July 2025) which would be 2nd October 2025, BUT ACAS's early conciliation phase stops the clock for up to a maximum of 6 weeks - once they've issued the early conciliation certificate the clock starts ticking again.

Baffled. You liked your job and want it back but were initially off with WRS?

I’m still unsure why you were off for such a long time, in all honesty, but I’d have eventually been going down the incapability/incapacity route too I think.

Why aren’t you answering questions OP?

You are being very unreasonable. Your employer owes you nothing - they have followed a process and they are not able to make your adjustments. What did you really expect to happen after so long off work?

the mind boggles that your partner would make arrangements for a holiday when you were to unwell to work.

fwiw, I used my accrued annual leave after 3 months in a psychiatric unit to do a phased return. I also did attendance review meetings whilst on the ward. That’s why my work were flexible with getting me back - because it was obvious I was working with them.

You absolutely were not good at your job, you were barely there.

I was absent during probation but passed and offered a permanent contract

It's probably safe to assume they bitterly regret that now ...

I know I’m getting frustrated with the OP’s lack of response to repeated basic questions and her complete inability to see she is being totally unreasonable, imagine how her employers felt putting up with this nonsense for months on end.

@mummytippy "I am [in] the process of getting legal advice." What does that even mean? Have you contacted an specialist employment lawyer or not? You're more than 3 months on from being dismissed - why haven't you consulted a lawyer already? How can you know the strength of any claim if you haven't spoken to a professional?
"The lead union representative has said that he will assist as best he can as said that had I been a member of the union earlier, my case would never have got as far as it did and I’d still have my job."
It's easy for your TU rep' to say that when it's beyond being tested - unless he's saying he'll stand up for you at ET (the ET you've previously said you don't want to go to)? And he's not an employment lawyer.

So joined the union as shit was hitting the fan. I think if the rep had been involved earlier he would have said get back to work asap and stop pissing about.

Out of curiosity. Just looked at the Unison website. Under ‘legal’, it says you must join at least four weeks before the incident took place, to get legal advice. If other unions are similar, not sure how far she’ll get with this if she’s only just joined.

OP it is perfectly understandable that this is very distressing, losing your job whilst struggling with health issues.

I am afraid the facts on this thread have been very hard to follow so I can only recommend getting in person employment law advice from someone with significant experience with advising on disability discrimination as that’s your only hope of a claim. You can go through with them the full facts face to face, what happened when are they can advise as to whether you have any realistic prospect or a claim. This would be money well spent even if the answer is you have no realistic claim and you can at least move on with your life.

Bear in mind that reinstatement almost never happens so don’t get your hopes up. Realistically they simply don’t want you back (rightly or wrongly) so any potential remedy you could get is likely to be monetary. If early conciliation fails (and I suspect it will) you won’t have that long to bring any claim. They almost certainly sped up the exit because they realised you were about to hit 2 years service.

No, why didn't you go to the hearing?

@Bobiverse To answer your specific points…

1, On my first fit note with my employer in 2024 it was Anxiety Disorder for Jan and Feb and then for March to beginning of April Stress/Anxiety and Tinnitus Left ear was on them.

2, Yes my employer put in a RA to address the issue of panic attacks. It was to allow me to go somewhere quiet if I felt a panic attack coming on.

3a, I worked as you say from beginning of April to end of November (7 months). My performance was good and I had frequent 1 to 1s with my TL and this helped. My employer did know of the Tinnitus as I had sent them audiology results and hearing tests etc. This was also in March 2024 but I didn’t ask for a reasonable adjustment for this then.

3b, Then the business installed new IT software in June and it caused lots of problems. They admitted the training was inadequate and it was far from perfect but all agents ended up with issues they could not resolve and cases built up. Although the Tinnitus had started during my first absence and as I knew the referral time was 38 weeks (from March 24) I pressed on working and just hoped the referral would come through sooner than later. I continued to wear my 2 sided headset as at this point I didn’t have a hearing aid.

4, the fit note from November was initially WRS and then Tinnitus was added as I started to feel depressed about that too. It definitely played on my mind a lot more once I was off work with work related stress. It was then Tinnitus was added to fit notes from June 2025 although this was always an underlying problem for me.

5, I was waiting on both CBT which started in April 2025 and also on the hearing aid which I received in May 2025. This was documented on fit notes in May and June 2025. It took longer than the 38 weeks from the initial ENT appointment to having and MRI and then Audiology appointments.

The businesses healthcare provider was made aware of my anxiety connected to my hearing loss and Tinnitus and it was documented in their report as a disability and that I should be allowed to complete my medical appointments in relation to CBT and Audiology before returning to work at the beginning of July. I worked to this timeline, attended the appointments which were literally the same time as the attendance review and after the AWR on 18/6. These appointments came with advice:
Audiology - a habituation period to allow me time to get used to the new setting which was put on it on 20/6 and the attendance review was 23/6 and the CBT final session was on 23/6 an hour before the attendance review. This came with advice for a stabilisation period. It was this I tried to explain to the hearing manager.

If my employer had come to me with an acceptable headset or approved the one I had sent them a link for to look at and also put their own phased return to work plan to me at the AWR I would have been able to set a date and potentially returned sooner. Instead at the AWR where I wanted to discuss my return in line with the company’s healthcare providers timeline of beginning of July which would have allowed me to have completed my appointments and to discuss a suitable headset as outlined in the notes from the May AWR this did not happen as they seemed unwilling to discuss it.

All I was wanting to do was follow medical advice as once I had returned to work I did not want to go off again. My TL had said on more than one occasion that I should not go back too soon as she’d made that mistake herself. I was conscious as I’d had time off before that I wanted to ensure this didn’t happen.

She did. The last hearing was on 23/6 - OP went on holiday on 24/6, the day after the hearing.

This. I'm trying to imagine managing a situation like this and this sort of thing can be contagious too.

A local company to me went to the wall due to a slew of pisstakers. 98 people all lost their jobs because of the gradual insidious creep of entitled behaviour that broke it apart. The place had run for 125 years and bam! Closed.

I completely agree, I think that OP is lucky to have hung on as long as she did and to purusue a reistatement of position is absolutely ridiculous.

If my employer had come to me with an acceptable headset or approved the one I had sent them a link for to look at and also put their own phased return to work plan to me at the AWR I would have been able to set a date and potentially returned sooner.

All this agg over a headset that was less than 30 quid. You were working from home the vast majority of the time and could've got the headset (as you eventually did), billed them and cracked on with getting back to work. There's this weird expectation for them to be 'interested' in all of it when you must know what they want is for you to show up and do the job, but it was clearly dawning on them - as it still isn't on you - that this wasn't really about headsets and plans, but about your bigger issues with stress that sent you off in the first place, got worse as you got depressed about the hearing issues, and would still be an issue whatever headset you got. The disability aspect is a side issue by your own timeline, even your title says it's 'linked to' rather than the cause of the absence itself. This is about the stress that kicked in early and then kept you off for almost half your time at the company, even in a role that was wfh almost all the time. To persist in wanting to be reinstated in these circumstances is bizarre.