forced to take a days holiday for an operation

rachyrach2k

Hi all,

I started a new job three weeks ago. I suffer from severe bowel problems which I had declared on the application form.

Unfortunately the pain started up again in my second week and I spoke to my line manager and she agreed I could take a days holiday to go and see my doctor, who referred me to see a consultant via private healthcare.

I saw the consultant who wanted me to undergo a surgical procedure to see if she could diagnose what was wrong with me. The operation was held on the friday just gone. I was informed by my manager that this had to be taken as a holiday. Is this allowed?

Unfortunately I was diagnosed with a condition they had to treat in the same procedure which means my recovery will be slightly longer. What do I do if the company makes me take any time off I have over the next week as holiday?

Thanks very much

robpw2

phone in sick and take sick leave

do you have an hr department i suggest you look at the sickness policy and see what there rules are regarding sick leave and using holidays

jdturk

you can take it as sick but tbh if this is your second week and you already going on the sick (even for a valid reason) then I wouldn't expect to be there to much longer

rachyrach2k

I have looked on the company intranet which has every policy going on there with the exception of sickness absence policy, which I find very strange.

I want to know if they can legally force me to take it as a holiday

jdturk

No, as long as you have a doctors note for your time of they cannot legally make you take it as holiday as far as I am aware.

It should be noted as you are probably aware that routine appointments will probably have to be made in your own time and as happened yours landed on a day of which you took as holiday.

As for the operation date I would expect that to be part of the sick pay as long as you have a doctors note

jdturk

As with everything the best thing would be to call ACAS and ask them

McKneff

Your first 7 days of sickness is self certification anyway, (you have 3 waiting days with no ssp)

For the day off that you had to take as holiday, would you rather have taken it off without pay, or did you expect to be paid.

rupee99

This will depend entirely upon your terms and conditions of employment. You may not be entitled to sick leave at all because of the, short, length of service, it might be unpaid or any one of a number of other permutations. In my experience it would be a very benevolent employer who would give paid sick leave (other than SSP) to someone with only three weeks service, even if they knew of a medical problem when the person was taken on.

There is no basic right in law to company paid sick leave, if you want to take the time off the company can insist on it being holiday or unpaid. They can also dismiss you on capacity grounds with very little chance of recourse to a Employment Tribunal because of lack of service.

Lady007

What needs to be considered here is whether or not your illness is likely to fall under the Disability Discrimination Act. If it does and you made your employer aware of this then to ask you to take leave is unreasonable as there will be a lot more "leave" days to come.

Fluffi

Exactly as Rupee99 says...the reason they are encouraging you to take holiday for your operation presumably because you don't have a contractual right to Company Sick pay and if you don't take the operation time as holiday then you'll only get SSP which is about £75 for a full week (5 days).

Its totally legal though - if a company doesn't pay Company Sick pay then I'd advise people not to use all their annual leave at the start of the year just in case they do need to have an operation or doctors appointments later in the year! Annual leave is just paid days off ... it doesn't mean they have to be for fun or relaxing times.

rupee99

Lady007 wrote: »

What needs to be considered here is whether or not your illness is likely to fall under the Disability Discrimination Act. If it does and you made your employer aware of this then to ask you to take leave is unreasonable as there will be a lot more "leave" days to come.

From what the OP has said it is unlikely that a "simple" medical condition would be covered by the Disability Discrimination Act, hence my comment that s/he would have recourse to a Tribunal, even if she did, at best, they would get an order allowing them to take unpaid leave.