pregnant and dangerous job, please help!

Feisty_Fairy

mountainofdebt wrote: »

tbh I can see why your employers wanted you to sign the disclaimer....they did the risk assessment and wanted to move you to a different location but for your personal reasons decided to decline the offer.

with regards to the garden leave, I'm presuming that this will be unpaid ....or are you expecting to be paid?

NO i didnt decline to move, they havent offered because its not available! Paid leave is apparently what i am entitled to according to the government website link above.

Feisty_Fairy

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I'm not really sure you did yourself any favours by declining to move to another house: you're saying "I know there are risks at this house, but I'd rather stay here because of the relationships I have." So they're trying to minimise the risks, and you're saying "No".

Leave aside whether they could accommodate you elsewhere with your hours: that would have been their problem not yours, surely.

I hope you can find a way forward, but you might need to do some backtracking yourself.

I think people are misundertsanding me here, i DIDNT decline to move, i asked if it was possible to stay in the house i am normally in then i would prefer but understand that it may not be possible, there are also similar risks in the other house just fewer clients with challenging behaviour, the company then said they cant move me anyway!

SarEl

Unfortunately, tradition doesn't really enter into it, and in this case it may not be paid. If I have understood the OP correctly, she has declined two offers of alternative employment made in order to remove her from situation which she deems to be dangerous. Whilst I fully understand why she feels that way, the fact is that this is her job. The employer has offered / done a risk assessment, and in response to the concerns that she has had had offered her alternative work if she wishes to take that offer. She has refused the alternatives. But there is a limit to what the employer has to do, and they seem to have covered their bases here in trying to make adjustments.

At this stage the OP has the option of going back to her GP and getting signed off sick, which she also refuses to do. Or she can do her job, with a proper risk assessment in place. Or she can do one of the jobs that she has been offered as an alternative. What she doesn't have a right to do is to be paid for not working for the rest of her pregnancy.

As has been pointed out, the employer does not have to remove all risk, because that is an utter impossibility. If you unreasonably refuse an offer which reduces the risk to you, and also refuse to do your job, then you can lawfully be suspended without pay. This is one the exceedingly rare circumstances where suspension without pay is lawful.

So I think the OP has some hard choices to make. Whilst I can fully appreciate her concerns around this employment during pregnancy, there has to be some give and take here. What she may prefer is not the same thing as what is reasonable. Going to the head office which is a two hours drive away is almost certainly not an unreasonable refusal, but changing your hours to obtain a suitable alternative role in a nearby house is not an unreasonable offer from the employer. If neither of these is acceptable, then I am afraid that being signed off sick is the only real alternative, and certainly preferable to being suspended without pay.

The only grounds upon which, in this situation, there is a right to suspension with pay is as a temporary measure for the employer to make adjustments to the job in order to comply with the risk assessment.

bigheadxx

Right to work in a safe environment

An employer has a legal duty to make the working environment safe for all employees, and particularly for women of childbearing age, to work in. This means that the employer must assess what health and safety risks there are in the workplace, and specifically, what risks may be posed to pregnant women, women who are breastfeeding and women who have given birth in the past six months.
Where there is a health and safety risk in the workplace, the employer must take action to eliminate the risk by:-

• taking any legal action required, for example, ensuring that pregnant women do not come into contact with hazardous chemicals
• altering your working conditions or hours of work so you are not put at risk, for example, a shop assistant could be given a chair so she does not have to stand for long periods. Other examples are, a person working at a computer could be given a more comfortable chair or more breaks and a woman whose job entails some lifting could have someone else do the lifting for her
• if altering your working conditions or hours is not possible, the employer must consider offering you different work, at the same pay
• if offering you different work is not possible, your employer must suspend you on medical grounds and pay you full pay while you are suspended.

If you are a pregnant woman or have recently given birth or are breastfeeding and you think you are at risk through health and safety problems at your workplace, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_money/employment/parental_rights_at_work.htm#Righttoworkinasafeen

You have an absolute right to work in a safe environment and if your working conditions cannot be changed you should be suspended on medical grounds on full pay.

Feisty_Fairy

PLEASE can i make something very clear, i HAVE NOT been offered an alternative position and so i HAVE NOT declined anything offered!:(

mountainofdebt

Wow Fiesty by name fiesty by nature eh?

Seriously though your initial post is very unclear as to whether you'd turned down something.

So lets get this straight ......there was talk of you moving to a different location but you said you'd rather not as you liked it where you were? To me that's as bad as turning something down (even if it hasn't been offered) as you've indicated (or at least to me you have) that if it had been offered you would have turned it down had it been.

So realistically what do you want them to do ? Pay you for doing nothing for 7 months?

SarEl

mountainofdebt wrote: »

Wow Fiesty by name fiesty by nature eh?

Seriously though your initial post is very unclear as to whether you'd turned down something.

So lets get this straight ......there was talk of you moving to a different location but you said you'd rather not as you liked it where you were? To me that's as bad as turning something down (even if it hasn't been offered) as you've indicated (or at least to me you have) that if it had been offered you would have turned it down had it been.

So realistically what do you want them to do ? Pay you for doing nothing for 7 months?

I am sorry but I agree. That is very definitely what you said - that you turned down an offer of alternative employment because the hours did not suit you and you would prefer to stay with your own clients.

Those people who are quoting the right to be suspended medically are misunderstanding the law on this. The employer has not said that the workplace is a risk - they have done a risk assessment, they have said that they can manage the risk, and they have made an offer to move you as an alternative. The person who says the workplace is a risk is the OP. There are no grounds to be medically suspended because the employee says there is a risk - only when the employer says there is a risk, and the employer says that they are satisfied that they can manage the risk. That is their right - and if they are incorrect it is their liability. But there is no right to a medical suspension because an employee refuses to work when the employer says that they have taken all reasonable steps to manage the risk. In the end if this goes to a dispute, then either party can call in the H&SE and see what they say.

I am sorry, but there is no absolute right to be paid for seven months because you have decided that there is a risk to you.

DVardysShadow

SarEl wrote: »

As has been pointed out, the employer does not have to remove all risk, because that is an utter impossibility.

Employer has to address all identified risks.

In this case, the clients are known to be challenging - you cannot address the risks which arise by arguing that occurrence of the risk is incredible. So a control measure will be required.

SarEl

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Employer has to address all identified risks.

In this case, the clients are known to be challenging - you cannot address the risks which arise by arguing that occurrence of the risk is incredible. So a control measure will be required.

The employer has to identify and address those risks which are foreseable. The OP may be at risk of being abducted by aliens, but it is hardly a credible risk, nor one that the employer could control. As has been pointed out, there are always risks that cannot be foreseen or identified and it is thus utterly impossible to remove all risk - just those that can be identified.

dickydonkin

A 'suitable and sufficient' risk assessment should determine who could be harmed and how and if forseeable risk(s) are identified, the likelihood and potential outcome (severity) of the risk should be evaluated with appropriate control measures then put into place.

A properly conducted risk assessment after completion should have an action plan with a timescale of when and who is responsible for implementing the controls.

It would be wise for both parties to comply with the findings and recommendations of the assessment - irrespective of the OP seemingly wishing to remain in an environment that may not be compatable to her current situation.

This part of the OP's quote would concern me if I was carrying out a risk asessment:

I work in a home looking after adults with learning dissabilities and challenging behaviour, they can sometimes become violent and this means you can sometimes get a smack or a kick etc

I would not be assessing something that is stationary such as a machine where any dangerous parts can be enclosed for example - we are talking about a pregnant woman working in an unpredictable environment which in my opinion (based on the posting) can be occasionally difficult to control. This is obviously fact because whatever controls are currently in place, the potential for injury to workers (pregnant or otherwise) obviously still exists.

In this situation, removing the person from the risk seems the obvious solution.

Where there is a health and safety risk in the workplace, the employer must take action to eliminate the risk

As mentioned earlier in this thread, it is difficult to be able to totally eliminate the risk in any environment (at work or otherwise), however, where any foreseeable risks has been identified and cannot be eliminated (so far as is reasonable practicable), then they should be reduced to an acceptable level.

The only possible way of totally eliminating a risk/hazard is by removing the risk/hazard from the person(s) or removing the persons from the risk/hazard, however, in many workplace situations, this may not be a reasonably practicable option in many situations, although I would suggest a sensible one (IMO) in this case.

I appreciate that there are other issues in this situation in respect of garden leave/payments etc, however, surely the most important aspect of the OP must be the welfare of herself and the unborn child.

Based on the information posted, it would appear that the employer has attempted to address the issues, although being asked to sign a risk assessment is a strange one as this would certainly not absolve the employer of legal redress should anyone become injured.

In fact it would likely make things worse as the employer would have allowed someone to work where a foreseeable risk had already been identified.

OP - whatever the solution is to the financial aspect of your situation, please make sure you do not put yourself at risk of injury to you or your child. Your finances can be remedied - you and your childs health is surely more important.