Occ health advised more time off

time_equals_miracles

Hi I'm really looking for some advice on returning to work. In brief I've been off for 5wks with a combination of work and home stress. I reached a point where it wasn't safe for me to be at work and do my role so was signed off. Since this point I've engaged with psychological support around what I can do to ensure I can manage at work I.e. boundaries, taking lunch break and saying no! I've also been prescribed some medication from gp with regular reviews and plan to increase etc.

Work have been really supportive and have maintained regular contact and we have discussed a plan to return to work and what changes both myself and management will need to consider. All felt very positive and after speaking to gp they have advised I am fit to return following end of current sicknote with some suggestions around phased return.

I've just had an occ health assessment and they have recommended a further 3wks off and a longer phased return than what was discussed with manager. I'm now unsure what happens next! I love my job and am keen to return and feel that this is practical at this stage. Do I need to stay off longer or can I discuss with management and return as planned? 

tacpot12

I would suggest that you try to discuss it with management, but you also consider a compromise where you return to work in 1.5 weeks time and take up the recommendation of a longer return to work. 

Jillanddy

To be fair, occupational health will know more about the work situation and workplace risk factors than your GP does. They gather a great deal of information, including stuff from your manager(s) when making their assessments. For example, if you were working in my team now, I wouldn't want someone trying to return to work after leave for stress - you would be walking into a very stressful situation which is out of control at the moment (that's another story) and I'd prefer to ease you back in after that period. You should be able to ask OH why they are recommending something different, but you manager can definitely ask that question if you can't. Maybe there's a reason that you'd agree with if you knew it.

Workplaces are all different, but where I work managers would never operate contrary to an OH recommendation. If things went wrong we would have no protection - our protection as well as yours is the contents of that OH report.