Medical retirement...

[zephyrcat]

Is there anyone around who could help me out with some info on this? My Mum has just had surgery for tennis elbow which was caused by her typing. She is a medical secretary, and the surgery will not involve occupational health, nor let her share her workload with her other collegues and basically have the attitude of 'Either you can do the job or you can't' By going back to her original job full time, her condition is not going to improve. We have tried to look into the route of medical retirement but can't seem to find any relelvant/helpful information.

Anyone info/knowledge/experience would be very much appreciated!

Are your mum's employers dismissing her then, on the grounds of incapacity? Is she signed off work at the moment - what does her doctor say about going back to work.

It would be unreasonable of her employer to dismiss her without first having sought medical/H&S advice, which could be an OH specialist, about whether her job can be adjusted to accommodate her condition.

However if typing is a significant part of her job, and long-term she won't be able to type anymore, maybe it isn't realistic for her to do the job? Giving her workload to others wouldn't be reasonable. Making adjustments to her workstation or changing the way she works would be, but sometimes there's actually not a lot that can be done.

I'm not sure what ou mean by 'medical retirement'? Does she want to take early retirement because on medical grounds she can't do her job? Or is she already at or beyond retirement age, in which case she can presumably just take retirement. Sorry, just not sure what you mean by that.

Sorry, yes, my post was pretty vague! They aren't dismissing her. She works with two or three other secretaries and they agreed that between them they could job-share to a degree so that my Mum isn't doing so much of the typing, but her boss told them that they can either do the job or they can't. My Mum was told to get a vertical mouse and she was going to ask occupational health to have a look at her work station but her boss said that she didn't want OH involved. I'm not sure if medical retirement is something that she can think of doing on the grounds that her condition affects her work and will actually be made worse again if she continues, this is what we need to find out.

I'm still not sure what you mean by 'medical retirement'? What would that be? If she's not able to continue in her job I think she has two options. She could either resign and look for something else that she is physically able to do, or she could wait for her employer to dismiss her on capability grounds. If they do that without taking reasonable steps to adjust the job for her, that would be unfair and she could appeal it/bring a tribunal claim for unfair dismissal. I'm not sure where retirement comes in, tbh.