can i be sacked while on a sick note?

chloo

hello

if you are reading thank you.

i started working for a company in august.

i became really ill and had an operation in october which meant i was off sick for 6 weeks including recovering time. i had a doctors sick note the entire time i was off work.

i went in to work to give in my last two sick notes and my boss told me i wasnt going to be taken back. she did not accept my sick notes.

what do i do? as they havent paid me for my SSP for the whole of november ( i had a sick note to cover the whole month) they also havent written to me to tell me i am not longer employed.

ideally i would like my job back but i understand this is unlikely to happen. i totally understand that it is frustrating for my work to have me off sick but it honestly isnt my fault i have been so ill and ended up having an operation. i also understand it isnt theres either.

prior to being ill i was told that i was a good worker and performing well.

how do i get my sick pay and also all of the holiday i have accrued?

does it help to tell you i was on a 12.5 hour contract? (i did work aprox 25-30 hours per week but i know i can only claim on what i am contracted.

thank you for any advice given.

Uncertain

During the first two years they can dismiss you without a reason. Your sick note does not prevent this.

However, you are entitled to notice. Unless your contract specified more this would be one week. That week should have been paid in full (not just SSP).

Holiday accrues during the time you were off sick and right up to the end of your notice period. They must pay you for this.

Write to them setting out what is owed and ask for payment within 21 days failing which you will begin legal proceedings.

If need be you can make an employment tribunal claim. You can start this online completely free of charge. However you MUST start this within three months of leaving. Don't be strung along.

Should you miss this deadline you can also claim unpaid wages via the County Court where the deadline is six years. You would however have to pay a fee up front.

SarEl

Your boss told you verbally that you were no longer in their employment and refused to take your sick notes - it may not be ideal from their point of view, but that is a termination of contract. I am unclear about why you were taking in your "last two" sick notes - you are supposed to provide your employer with sick notes at the time they are issued to explain why you won't be able to attend work, not provide them after the event. And yes, you can be sacked while on sick leave - you can be sacked for almost any reason (or none) for the first two years of employment now.

If you did not provide your sick notes in a timely manner then the employer is entirely justified in not paying SSP - without those sick notes you are not sick, you are "absent without leave"; and those sick noyes are the authority the employer uses to pay SSP, so without them they would not have to process an SSP payment (assuming you were entitled to SSP). The sick notes are the evidence that you are sick. Whether or not the employer can, or must, "backdate" payments if you have only latterly provided the sick noyes, I do not know. But legally they are entitled to take the view that you resigned because you neither attended work, nor did you provide sick notes as evidence of the reason why you failed to attend work.

This whole thing seems far from clear - it is something of a mess. Technically, if they dismiss you on sick leave then you are entitled to a weeks notice at normal pay, plus any accrued holiday pay. But I am not 100% sure that they have sacked you, since there appears to be some evidence here that legally, you simply didn't turn up to work and didn't provide a reason / evidence for that.

I think at this stage your only real option is to write to them and ask them what has happened to your November SSP, notice pay and holiday pay. See what they say and them come back here.

SarEl

Uncertain wrote: »

During the first two years they can dismiss you without a reason. Your sick note does not prevent this.

However, you are entitled to notice. Unless your contract specified more this would be one week. That week should have been paid in full (not just SSP).

Holiday accrues during the time you were off sick and right up to the end of your notice period. They must pay you for this.

Write to them setting out what is owed and ask for payment within 21 days failing which you will begin legal proceedings.

If need be you can make an employment tribunal claim. You can start this online completely free of charge. However you MUST start this within three months of leaving. Don't be strung along.

Should you miss this deadline you can also claim unpaid wages via the County Court where the deadline is six years. You would however have to pay a fee up front.

Our posts crossed but on this occasion I cannot agre that this is the first step as I am not at all clear that this is not being taken as a dismissal, but rather the OP simply having "disappeared". I think that before extablishing whether the OP is owed notice pay etc., we need to establish why the employer has not paid = because the OP does not appear to have helped themselves in this.

Uncertain

SarEl wrote: »

Our posts crossed but on this occasion I cannot agre that this is the first step as I am not at all clear that this is not being taken as a dismissal, but rather the OP simply having "disappeared". I think that before extablishing whether the OP is owed notice pay etc., we need to establish why the employer has not paid = because the OP does not appear to have helped themselves in this.

Point taken.

However I think if I was the OP I would very much take the line it was a dismissal and see what happens. The employer is unlikely to have your depth of legal knowledge and may well dig themselves a hole!

SarEl

Uncertain wrote: »

Point taken.

However I think if I was the OP I would very much take the line it was a dismissal and see what happens. The employer is unlikely to have your depth of legal knowledge and may well dig themselves a hole!

They might - but failure to provide sick notes is one that seldom gets past employers! Bearing in mind that the OP would presumably like a decent reference, before starting a fight it might be better to check you are right! I think a letter asking where their sick pay etc is would be a reasonable first step.

chloo

Hello thank you for your replies.

I was in constant contact with my work during this time. This was the time after and during my operation. I confirmed with my boss that I would bring in my sick note when I was out of hospital and back home this was agreed.

Who would I write to this is a multi national company.

Thank you

SarEl

chloo wrote: »

Hello thank you for your replies.

I was in constant contact with my work during this time. This was the time after and during my operation. I confirmed with my boss that I would bring in my sick note when I was out of hospital and back home this was agreed.

Who would I write to this is a multi national company.

Thank you

In the first instance I would write to HR. But for future reference, no matter what you boss says, sick notes get submitted immediately, not later. If there is no sick note to cover your absence then you are absent without leave - whatever your reason is for not submitting them. I doubt your boss will want to confirm that they told you this!

jazabelle

SarEl wrote: »

In the first instance I would write to HR. But for future reference, no matter what you boss says, sick notes get submitted immediately, not later. If there is no sick note to cover your absence then you are absent without leave - whatever your reason is for not submitting them. I doubt your boss will want to confirm that they told you this!

I'm not disagreeing, but a little unfair if you're in hospital having an operation...

SarEl

jazabelle wrote: »

I'm not disagreeing, but a little unfair if you're in hospital having an operation...

It may seem so, but even hospitals have postal services and people usually have at least one family member or friend. And to be fair, the operation was in October, it is now December and that means sick notes for the whole of November were not submitted! The employer certainly doesn't seem to be an inncoent party in any of this - and they seldom are - but there are also certain things that employees are expected to know about and do which are not unreasonable. Submitting sick notes as soon as they are issued really is one of them. And the OP did say that they would submit their sick notes "as soon as they were out of hospital and back home" to the boss, so unless they were in hospital for a very long period of time, that still leaves a period of 4/5 weeks when they were able to submit them and didn't.

dawnybabes

Also you need to earn over about £102 for the previous 8 weeks iirc you don't qualify for SSP if you haven't