Pregnancy & COVID

SenseandSensibility

Hi,
I am employed in an administrative role at a major hospital in London, and also 26 weeks pregnant.
My colleagues and I were divided into two teams who began working from home on alternative days back in March (e.g. Team 1 in the office Mon-Wed, WFH Thurs-Fri, Team 2 WFH Mon-Wed, in office Thurs-Fri, then swapping week 2), however my situation was complicated two months ago by an investigation into some errors I made, during which I was required to be on site 5 days a week due to restricted duties, whilst my colleagues continued to rotate, but with the assurance that I would resume the same pattern when the investigation concluded. Needless to say it ended 6 weeks ago, and I have since not been permitted to resume WFH, despite full knowledge of my pregnancy, because of ‘training’ which I completed a month ago. I have raised the matter several times, but remain conveniently ignored. As I am now a fortnight from my third trimester, I’ve been told by sympathetic colleagues that I will need to isolate and therefore WFH full-time until I commence my mat leave in March, as advised by the government and Royal College of Obstetricians. Is this true? If so, how can I make my manager aware of this requirement? I feel I have been treated very unfairly during my pregnancy, having been placed at risk and made to be on-site full-time when the rest of my team has been WFH.

stokegal

First of all - congratulations on your pregnancy!

Have you had a risk assessment at work yet? You should have one due to pregnancy regardless of COVID.

I’m also pregnant and have been advised to work from home in my final trimester - it might be worth seeing if it is documented anywhere online and sending this on to your manager asking how they can accommodate this.

sheramber

have a read of this
https://pregnantthenscrewed.com/covid-19/pregnant-rights-during-covid-19/

Morrigan_2020

The NHS is sending pregnant employees home from 28 weeks, hopefully your manager is aware of this, its been policy for nearly a year now so I expect they are. 

If the reason you are being asked to work on site is that you have made errors and require closer supervision of your work as a result then I really don't think that's unreasonable.  You can't really claim you were being put at risk, front line pregnant staff are still working on the wards up until 28 weeks so its considered an acceptable situation for you to be in work. 

SenseandSensibility

Thank you all for your kind responses, I feel much better now knowing that it’s a nationwide policy throughout the NHS. The website also looks very informative, I’ll take a closer look, and will request a meeting with my manager to discuss it this week. Thank you all again for your advice!