No self isolation required but employer saying must not work and with no pay.

Grumpy_chap

OP can argue or assume all they want.

The .gov website seems clear.

Registered health or care professionals

The exemption from the requirement to self-isolate for registered health or care professionals was removed on Friday 31 July 2020.

If you fall into this group and you arrived in England on or after 31 July you will need to self-isolate if you visited or made a transit stop in a country or territory that is not on the travel corridors list in the 14 days before your arrival.

If you fall into this group and you arrived in England before 31 July you will not need to self-isolate if you are required to work within 14 days of your arrival. Read the rules about when you need to self-isolate and for how long.

What is it that the OP does not understand?

Or is it just that the OP does not like the answer and will keep asking until someone says "there, there dear, of course  you do whatever you like."

daaff

Grumpy_chap said:

OP can argue or assume all they want.

I can see why your username is what it is    Very sorry if I haven't been 100% clear on my points

We returned prior to 31st July - when the rules were different (see my previous post for the rules back then)
I am 98% certain her excemption is true and correct - the 2% doubt is that government do like to cause confusion in the rules and may have meant something entirely different.

onwards&upwards

daaff said:

Grumpy_chap said:

OP can argue or assume all they want.

I can see why your username is what it is    Very sorry if I haven't been 100% clear on my points

We returned prior to 31st July - when the rules were different (see my previous post for the rules back then)
I am 98% certain her excemption is true and correct - the 2% doubt is that government do like to cause confusion in the rules and may have meant something entirely different.

I'm afraid you are wrong.  She was never exempt. 

The exemption was for healthcare staff who had been recruited from abroad to work in UK care settings and that was the purpose of their journey.  It was not for UK nurses coming back off holiday. 

The NHS trust I work for announced different rules depending on whether the staff member was already in Spain when the change was announced or if they went on holiday after the change knowing full well they would have to quarantine.  The first group were allowed to work from home on full pay (even if they couldn't do much work), the second group had to take annual leave or unpaid leave. 

k12479

daaff said:

Here is the description prior to 31st July:

Registered health or care professionals travelling to the UK to provide essential healthcare, including where this is not related to coronavirus.

Grumpy_chap said:

If you fall into this group and you arrived in England before 31 July you will not need to self-isolate if you are required to work within 14 days of your arrival. Read the rules about when you need to self-isolate and for how long.

I think the key point that the Grumpy Chap is referring to is related to the highlighted wording.

'returning from holiday' is not 'travelling to the UK to provide essential healthcare', it's 'returning home'. Travelling to the UK to provide essential healthcare would be say, a Swiss infectious diseases expert being called over to the UK to consult or a Czech travelling here to start work in a care home.

In the update, you are obviously not 'required' to work if an NHS trust is saying you can't work, 'required' is not the same as 'want to', this clearly appears to be a clause to allow people to be called in during the 14 days if they are needed e.g. for a virus spike. Take a look at some of the other exemptions, they are all related to travel as part of performing a job, not exempting people because of what industry they work in.

Pollycat

onwards&upwards said:

The NHS trust I work for announced different rules depending on whether the staff member was already in Spain when the change was announced or if they went on holiday after the change knowing full well they would have to quarantine.  The first group were allowed to work from home on full pay (even if they couldn't do much work), the second group had to take annual leave or unpaid leave. 

That sounds a sensible way of dealing with it - at least to me.

Jeremy535897

Grumpy_chap said:

Jeremy535897 said:

daaff said:

Even if the staff member doesn't need to self isolate the employer can choose not to pay them?

If you take booked holiday somewhere that the UK does not require you to quarantine yourself on your return, you should just go back to work and be paid as normal. If employers want employees to quarantine themselves when there is no requirement to do so, they should pay the employees concerned during quarantine, unless the contract of employment states that they must quarantine on return without pay..

Quite correct Jeremy, but the OP specifically says OP's wife returned from holiday in Spain last week, so does need to quarantine and most employers won't pay.

Yes, I was answering the question regarding the case where there is no requirement to self isolate. In circumstances where our own country's leisure industry is desperate for business, and flying abroad is bound to increase risk of catching COVID-19 (just because of the airport and aeroplane environments, if nothing else), as well as increase carbon emissions, it is rather a pity that so many people want to dash off abroad at the earliest opportunity.

daaff

Thanks everyone. Even more confusion! 

Regarding holidays, that was cleared up:

• Quarantine exemptions will apply to all regulated professionals within health and social care
• To qualify, those entering the UK will need to be able to provide evidence that they are due to start work within 14 days and be able to demonstrate their professional registration
• Regulated staff who leave the UK for a holiday or to visit family and return will also be exempt. However, they will need to prove they are resuming employment within 14 days.

She would have resumed employment this week so had proof.

onwards&upwards said:

The NHS trust I work for announced different rules depending on whether the staff member was already in Spain when the change was announced or if they went on holiday after the change knowing full well they would have to quarantine.  The first group were allowed to work from home on full pay (even if they couldn't do much work), the second group had to take annual leave or unpaid leave. 

This makes sense - shame each trust appears to be making up their own rules.

onwards&upwards

I really don't remember that being the case, and I'm fairly sure no NHS trusts would not have paid staff to quarantine if it was allowed to have them back in work.  Those staff were expected and rostered and needed. 

Was Spain on the quarantine list when you left the UK?

daaff

onwards&upwards said:

I really don't remember that being the case, and I'm fairly sure no NHS trusts would not have paid staff to quarantine if it was allowed to have them back in work.  Those staff were expected and rostered and needed. 

Was Spain on the quarantine list when you left the UK?

No we left about a week before - so Spain was still on the 'safe' list, returned early last week, when NHS staff were still exempt from isolating - a few days later NHS staff were removed from exemption list.

k12479

daaff said:

• Quarantine exemptions will apply to all regulated professionals within health and social care
• To qualify, those entering the UK will need to be able to provide evidence that they are due to start work within 14 days and be able to demonstrate their professional registration
• Regulated staff who leave the UK for a holiday or to visit family and return will also be exempt. However, they will need to prove they are resuming employment within 14 days.

She would have resumed employment this week so had proof.

That appears to have come from this site, which isn't dated but links to a page dated 22nd May, so not exactly the latest info:
https://www.aomrc.org.uk/uncategorised/coronavirus-covid-19-travellers-exempt-from-uk-border-rules-in-force-from-8th-june/

'Resuming employment'? You don't cease employment when you go on holiday so you can't resume employment when you return. You can resume employment if you've previously quit, which funnily enough fits this bit: "travelling to the UK to provide essential healthcare....You’ll need to show:

• you’ll start work within 14 days of your arrival in the UK"