Claiming whilst child off sick.

andrew71

My daughter (age 6) as just been discharged from hospital. My wife booked a week off work due to this. The hospital informed her that our daughter needed to be off school for atleast 2 weeks (not the one week as previously stated).
My wife has phoned her work up to let them know the situation and she as been informed she can only claim one week off as holiday and the other week as unpaid leave.
Is this right? Does my wife have the rights to any pay due to our daughter being off school sick?
She asked about compassionate leave but this is only for one day.

I am off work with ME so I am unable to look after our daughter whilst my wife is at work.

Thank you very much.

CIS

I dont think there is any legal right to paid compassionate leave, it depends on the contract of employemnt.

The employer can restrict when holidays are taken within reason, as shes going to be off for two weeks , has she tried re-negotiating the leave ?.

At the end of the day its working out better for her company to give her two weeks holiday as they then dont loose a weeks works from an employee and still have to loose them for the weeks holiday at a later date.

krisskross

a lot of employers give carers leave for time like this, might be worth checking up on.

Sorry haven't mastered little links but have a look at this site

http://www.info.doh.gov.uk/doh/notice.nsf/0/80256c7e004a44a300256a1f003b5b27?OpenDocument

ohreally

You have a statutory right to time off to care for your child. There are qualifying criteria for this though and it's likely to be unpaid.

Tabbykatt

Not sure if this helps but I am sure that there are some regulations about Parental leave...
Is there not a minimum payment for parental leave? My husband has been researching it (unfortunatly I dont know the details) as our baby is due in 13days and I have to have a Ceasarian so will be needing help for at least a couple of weeks afterwards with my other two children. He was hoping to take Parental leave rather than holiday until he found out that he would only get paid £100 or a certain percentage of his wage whichever was the least... this would mean a wage cut of nearly £400 a week! Needless to say he is taking time off as his annual leave... But if your financial situation could handle this then maybe that may be an option and I;m sure there are others on this board that could give you more exact details

calleyw

The DTI have some info here

The parental leave that TabbyKatt is on about looks like it is to do with a birth of a child and not the illness of a child. Looks like it is up to the childs 5th birthday then nothing after that.

But if you want to read what the DTI say look here

Yours

Calley

likabu_2

It is my understanding that a parent is entitled to 13 weeks of parental leave per child - unfortunately unpaid.

calleyw

likabu wrote:

It is my understanding that a parent is entitled to 13 weeks of parental leave per child - unfortunately unpaid.

Up until the child is 5 years old. If they where born prior to 1999 then the leave would already have to be taken by march of last year.

And the OP said his daugther was 6.


Yours


Calley

Prudent

Also on DTI sitte was the following:


How much time can I take off?

"As long as it takes to deal with the immediate emergency. For example, if your child falls ill you can take enough time off to deal with their initial needs, such as taking them to the doctor and arranging for their care. But you’ll need to make other arrangements if you want to stay off work longer to care for them yourself."


I asked my solicitor about this a few years ago, as I had sole care of my daughter who needed time off for medical reasons. She told me that a couple of days is considered ok to make alternative arrangements, but a couple of weeks is not.

I was lucky in that a friend offered to help because her son was also off at the time and she was a stay at home mum.

Tabbykatt

calleyw wrote:

Up until the child is 5 years old. If they where born prior to 1999 then the leave would already have to be taken by march of last year.

I dont know if this is me, but this 5year thing seems a bit daft in the real world. Alot of mothers I know return to the workplace when the child reaches 5 (or goes to school). Surly after the age of five, when maybe both parents are working would be the time when workplace parental leave legislation should be in place?
Seems that there is alot of pressure on a mother/parent to return to work at this stage in their childs life and yet there is nothing there to support them when their child becomes ill which SHOULD be the parents priority, esp as most child-minders will not look after a sick child. If they do not have a compassionate employer what can they do?

Sorry, I know its not really on topic but just my thoughts...

calleyw

Tabbykatt wrote:

I dont know if this is me, but this 5year thing seems a bit daft in the real world. Alot of mothers I know return to the workplace when the child reaches 5 (or goes to school). Surly after the age of five, when maybe both parents are working would be the time when workplace parental leave legislation should be in place?
Seems that there is alot of pressure on a mother/parent to return to work at this stage in their childs life and yet there is nothing there to support them when their child becomes ill which SHOULD be the parents priority, esp as most child-minders will not look after a sick child. If they do not have a compassionate employer what can they do?

Sorry, I know its not really on topic but just my thoughts...

But personally as I have no children I think that all staff should be offered a max of 13 weeks unpaid leave to do as they want to over a certain time period. Not just parents.

It should be fair for all.

Yours

Calley