How is it possible to guarantee you will not be off work due to sickness?

Malkin157

If I was allergic to nuts I wouldn't work in a peanut factory, so why would someone who is susceptible to illness want to work in outpatients?

This is why there are probationary periods, for both employer and employee, it cannot be good for the employee to be getting ill all the time nor, can the employer be reasonably expected to take someone on who has a track record of high levels of absence.

The employee might be the best at the job that there is, but if they aren't there, they might as well be the worst.

In this case the employee should be seeking alternative employment because it is unlikely to end well, the NHS needs someone in the role to be productive, not absent for 25% of the year.

ILW

marybelle01 wrote: »

No employer is there for the benefit of their employees. I think we all get that. This is capitalism after all. And people are often a nuisance. The planet would be much quieter without them. A lot less polluted. And run by cockroaches. Which I am sometimes not sure it isn't. People are sick. They can't help that. I don't say it is fair or not fair - it just is. If the sick and disabled don't deserve work, does that mean that we should consign them to benefits? And if it does, do you support a living benefit level for people who can't work due to sickness? And who will pay for that? Isn't it better to have a humane system that supports the sick to carry on working and contributing. The NHS isn't society - it's just a bit of it.

Guess that is where we differ in opinion. I believe it is the states job to support those not capable of productive work, this is not a task that should be forced on employers.

marybelle01

ILW wrote: »

Guess that is where we differ in opinion. I believe it is the states job to support those not capable of productive work, this is not a task that should be forced on employers.

So do I. However, I was under the impression that we were not discussing people incapable of productive work. We were discussing people who are quite capable of productive work, but who get ill sometimes.

ILW

marybelle01 wrote: »

So do I. However, I was under the impression that we were not discussing people incapable of productive work. We were discussing people who are quite capable of productive work, but who get ill sometimes.

I would suggest that someone who is off sick 25% of the time, is unlikely to be productive but more a burden on any organisation.

caringa

sulphate wrote: »

Speaking as someone who used to work for the NHS-

- She needs to get occupational health involved as they may be able to suggest things she hasn't thought of
- Unfortunately as well as the obvious advantage of keeping her job she would do best to ask for a OH referral asap because too much time off sick will impact on her ability to get another, especially in the NHS. A colleague of mine had handed in her notice at the NHS and was a week away from starting her new role and then they withdrew her conditional offer of employment due to too much sick leave which came into light after all her references had come through

I hope she finds a solution

She has already seen OH and all they could suggest was a flu jab! She eats healthy food, with plenty of fruit and veg, makes sure she rests every evening after work and gets plenty of fresh air at the weekend. It seems to me that if she had a visible disability, she would probably get more help. This was definately the case when she contracted M.E. 10 years ago as a teenager. It was not fully recognised then and her school even suggested she had school phobia. Despite this, she gained 3 GCSE's through 3 hours PER WEEK home tuition and went on to do a BTECH at college afterwards.


All she wants is to have a normal job and life but it seems that the legacy of her illness will always be there.

gettingready

Sorry but you refer to ME as something from the past - is this what is affecting your daughter still?

Nicki

I agree that it is extremely bad luck for your daughter that she was ill so young and remains frail. Where I struggle more is with your thinking that this should also be the employers bad luck and that she should be allowed to have as much time off as she needs (paid under the sickness policy) so long as her illness is genuine, irrespective of what impact that has on the running of the employers business. Having relatively recently been in this situation with an employee who had 28 days sickness between January and September, from an employers point of view this was unsustainable. A single long illness such as Miss Ryan's is easier to cope with as you can bring in long term temp cover but not knowing from one week to the next whether someone will turn up for work is impossible.

Are there other options your DD could consider - being self employed or doing contract work for example where she bears the risk of poor health herself?

caringa

gettingready wrote: »

Sorry but you refer to ME as something from the past - is this what is affecting your daughter still?

Yes - it was in the past (8 years ago) but as I said in my post, with many people it leaves them with a very low immune system. This is how it has affected my daughter.

caringa

Nicki wrote: »

I agree that it is extremely bad luck for your daughter that she was ill so young and remains frail. Where I struggle more is with your thinking that this should also be the employers bad luck and that she should be allowed to have as much time off as she needs (paid under the sickness policy) so long as her illness is genuine, irrespective of what impact that has on the running of the employers business. Having relatively recently been in this situation with an employee who had 28 days sickness between January and September, from an employers point of view this was unsustainable. A single long illness such as Miss Ryan's is easier to cope with as you can bring in long term temp cover but not knowing from one week to the next whether someone will turn up for work is impossible.

Are there other options your DD could consider - being self employed or doing contract work for example where she bears the risk of poor health herself?

Up until she started this job in the summer, she has never been paid for days taken off sick - which she understood and agreed with. However, with this job in the NHS they DO pay if you are off sick - not that this means she is more likely to take time off. She loathes being home sick (it reminds her of the awful months and months that she had to spend in bed in her teenage years!) She has offered to use her holiday entitlement or go without pay if she is off sick but they wont accept that.

mandragora_2

because that doesn't solve the problem for them, insofar as if they employ someone to do a job, they need that person, in the workplace, doing the job.