Time off for your child's hospital appointment

[mumofom]

Does your employer give you time off to take your child to a local hospital appointment or do you have to take leave etc.

I must confess it would be lovely to get all my time off for my sons appnts paid. However I can see how it would be unfair to other employees.
Even though its no fun sitting in waiting rooms, I bet someone would complain if I was granted paid time off.
This week for example he has OT, SALT & Paed appnt (i'm on holiday anyway as is half term).
But it is unreasonable to expect my employer to pay for me not to be there that often.
Some weeks I do a full week

My apologies mumofom if that is not what you meant (there is no need to shout btw) but that was how I interpreted your post when I read it.

The reason your child's appointments are treated differently is because you company is employing you, not your child. You chose to have the child and you have to deal with the consequences of that choice, some of which are not great. But that's the deal.

I think anonandlikeit's post of 21:10 sums up the point I was trying to make.

And if you could direct me to where I have said children should take themselves to their own appointments I'd be grateful

Why shouldn't a disabled person, or rather her carer get paid time off?

Um, because a court decided that it should be that way?

Why are you so jealous of paid time off anyway to take a disabled child to a hospital appointment? Weird.

I'm not going to rise to the "jealous" comment... You don't know anything about my situation past, or present.

The reason why carers can't be away from work and still being paid is because it is unfair to other employees who do not get the same paid leave. Yes, I know that what you are doing when you have to take leave to fulfil carer or parental responsibilities is not fun but what the person left at the office sees is they both "get paid the same salary but I work an extra 2 days a year" or similar.

There is also the other matter of who is paying for this. Businesses can't afford to have people on the payroll who are not at work (a symptom of this is the fact that many companies have cut sick pay in recent years and introduced qualifiying periods before any is due in some cases). Some people have additional benefits in their contract which include provision for pay for carering responsibilities, but this is often covered by an insurance policy or has been built into the operating costs of the business. Obviously this is more expensive which is why it is not standard in employment contracts.

At work you have to be fair and be seen to be fair. You can't discriminate against people and one way to remove the discrimination would be to take the financial burden of paid leave for carers away from business and make it a social responsibility. In order to do this there would need to be a change to the law and give carers entitlement to claim statutory pay to be away from work. That cost would then be picked up up by the tax payer, not the employer and would remove the argument that carers are getting additional paid leave, although it does have it's pitfalls...

Statutory carers pay, were it to exist, is likely to be significantly less than what the employee is actually earning (like statutory sick pay and maternity leave are) and you would probably find people would still elect to use annual leave rather than have less in their pay packet. So probably still not the answer

Regardless of any of the above, people at work deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and should not have to go on bended knee to request what are their legal rights. Currently carers have rights to unpaid leave under employment law. Many companies do the decent thing and allow flexible or annual leave to be used instead and do so in a polite and respectful way. Unfortunately some people do not behave in that way and that should be challenged when encountered.

The issue of carers and taking leave is an employment issue. The issue of paying carers to do that is possibly a social one?

lol, it would have to be going some to beat carer's allowance... what does it work out to, about £1.50 an hour iirc? (and that's only for the 35 -40 hours a week you actually 'work' (lol) as opposed to the 24/7 you actually care... makes it really financially worthwhile giving up your job. not.

but it is a nice idea...

for any of you that haven't found it, 'working families' runs an info organisation called 'waving not drowning' which provides some allegedly useful info into attempting to work whilst raising a disabled child. i say 'allegedly' as unless you can persuade ss to cough up for an immense amount of dps, you are pretty much on your own, however 'helpful' they might be

There are 2 arguments going here.

I didn't decide that the carer of a disabled dependent child was entitled to the same legislation as a disabled child. It was the court. Court of Appeal or House of Lords, I can't remember. That's the legal position.

If someone feels that despite a legal entitlement, it's ethically wrong, well, then that's their decision.

But would just like to point out that it's the same argument as whether it's acceptable to take time off for maternity leave -- i.e. burden on other employees, having to cover one's own job etc as is being discussed above.

I am quite disturbed by the idea that anyone would calculate how much time a carer had spent away from work and resent it; let alone get worked up about two days

Riven is right - if people are going to go down such a route, they ought to follow it to it's natural conclusion and consider the potential tax burden of the alternatives. (Including missed hospital appointments.) It is sad that it is this line of argument and not simple humanity that seems to appeal to twitching number crunchers.

My point entirely - I do not expect weeks or days off work for appointments, I am well aware there are things in place for longer term absence to look after a child (ie carers leave etc). I am talking about the odd few hours every 6 months or so to take a young child with additional needs to an out-patients appointment. It is beyond belief that some people are counting up hours - nasty actually, perhaps you would like to walk in the shoes of a parent who has to sit, drained and exhausted in a hospital waiting area for long spells, and that's only part of it - the worry about the long term health issues of your child additional to this. And if it makes this type of person sleep better at night then I have never, am not and i am unlikely to ever get authorised paid time to attend such appointments - always been taken in my own time. What happened to humanity. Have a good day!

I can't work out if you're having a go at me personally or the system (which I have tried to explain)?

My argument is quite simple. If you are not at work you can't expect to be paid regardless of the reasons why. This is because other people, sadly, only see things from their own perspective and just don't care what you're doing when you're not at work... they just care that you are not there.

The reality is that some people just don't care. They see things from their point of view "I'm having to cover again" "X is never here" and it leads to resentment. I think this needs to be acknowledged so it can be managed and avoided.

I have been the manager dealing with situations like this and I've been the person who has to be out of the office in a caring capacity

I think in the short term the vast, vast majority of people are undrstanding & wouldn't mind the odd morning or afternoon off to take a sick child to appnts.

BUT the reality is, when you are dealing with long term disability & illness sympathy quickly runs out & is quickly replaced by "is she off again."

I have vastly reduced my working hours & taken a demotion, relinquishing much of my responsibility to allow me the flexibility to remain working & care for my son.

Whilst it is a juggling act, it is MY CHOICE, to continue working.
I honestly believe my employer is being as accommodating as possible.
I don't believe the employer should pay me when i'm not there.
They allow me to make up hours, take short notice leave, take large chunks of unpaid leave, work from home... All of these things are not permitted for employees without a disabled child.
Where would they draw the line... pay everybody who takes time off to take anybody for hospital/medical appnts.
Business would grind to a halt.

& honestly some people would try to abuse the system, sad as it may be.
We actually had someone try to claim a maternity/family entitlement for her horse when going through a difficult pregnancy... She claimed her horses are her family!

anon you have described the situation perfectly. Much better than me.

The horse woman. Madness! But they do exist don't they?

Yep they do!
I think theya re nutters but hey, it is their choice!
honestly i still get the "oh half day again" comments as i walk out the door to take ds2 to an appnt or therapy.

At least i can give them the reply "yes but i only get paid for half a day"
I honestly don't think they are being mean or malicious they just don't think before they speak.
If my employer paid me for every appnt I would of had approx 25 -30 days additional paid leave last yr.
The fact that much of that time was spent in some very tough appnts & driving an hour each way to the hospital is irrelevant.
It is still time out of the office.

Time off unpaid

not anywhere i've ever worked, riv. if there's still work to be done and you're the one that's there, you have to do it. and i've been the manager dictating that policy, too. some stuff has external deadlines that it's not possible to e-mail and say 'sorry, we're all going home and x isn't in today.' it's 'this stuff has to be waiting when they log on in the morning or we're going to lose x million from our budget next year.'

and when you're the one who has to take the child to the hospital, it doesn't even come down to legality, or ethics, it's a real grinding decision about which is going to make you feel more guily - walking out and leaving three people in the office to come up with the goods (often knowing that you are the best chance of putting together a case) or trying to reschedule an appointment you've waited six months for, for a child that needs to see this particular specialist today, or you'll have to wait another six months and put up with the scathing comments about late cancellations and wasted appointments.

there is no perfect answer. sensible and sensitive management is the best solution there is, but it just doesn't cut it in some situations.

...hence parents of children with disabilities taking the sahm or sahd route, or ending up in part time jobs, or positions which which they are massively overqualified for, but provide the required flexibility. few and far between...

guilty lol. guile has sweet fa to do with it