Privacy breach- sick leave

TobyTell17

Hi all 

hoping to get some advice on what to do. I was admitted to hospital for planned  surgery for a medical condition, I issued my line manager with a copy of the hospital letter with the date and time of my operation and consultants name. For confidentiality the surgery procedure was marked out. Since then I have been signed off by GP for post op recovery. 

I have noticed that my boss has recorded my absence on the HR system putting yeh reason for my sickness as originally ‘hospital inpatient’ to now ‘reproductive’. 

No where on my hospital admission letter or my not fit to work notes from GP does it mention what my operation was for. I suspect my boss has googled the consultant and found that he is a gynaecologist. I’m outraged by the means of which he has found this information and applied it to my sickness absence as opposed to me divulging any information. I feel this is really unprofessional and it feels almost as if it’s being dismissive and downplaying the importance of my procedure. 

I don’t know how to handle this, I question what privacy rights I have but also not sure how to question him on why ‘reproductive’ was recorded as the reason for my absence, in an attempt to high his unprofessionalism. 

Any advise is welcomed! 

wilfred30

Do you think it might be possible that he meant to type 'recuperative'?

Silvertabby

TobyTell17 said:

Hi all 

hoping to get some advice on what to do. I was admitted to hospital for planned  surgery for a medical condition, I issued my line manager with a copy of the hospital letter with the date and time of my operation and consultants name. For confidentiality the surgery procedure was marked out. Since then I have been signed off by GP for post op recovery. 

I have noticed that my boss has recorded my absence on the HR system putting yeh reason for my sickness as originally ‘hospital inpatient’ to now ‘reproductive’. 

No where on my hospital admission letter or my not fit to work notes from GP does it mention what my operation was for. I suspect my boss has googled the consultant and found that he is a gynaecologist. I’m outraged by the means of which he has found this information and applied it to my sickness absence as opposed to me divulging any information. I feel this is really unprofessional and it feels almost as if it’s being dismissive and downplaying the importance of my procedure. 

I don’t know how to handle this, I question what privacy rights I have but also not sure how to question him on why ‘reproductive’ was recorded as the reason for my absence, in an attempt to high his unprofessionalism. 

Any advise is welcomed! 

I'd be amazed - and horrified - if your boss had been crass enough to intentionally do this.

Are you sure that it's not a typo - and that he meant to put 'productive' (as in active employee, no longer in hospital)?

ADD:  Just seen Wilfred's comment.  Yes, possible that we are dealing with the dreaded spell check here? 

Savvy_Sue

The other possibility is that the manager has a limited number of options to choose from a drop-down menu and has picked something which seems plausible. Not a great idea, I'll grant you ... 

74jax

At your back to work interview just say 'I've seen you marked my absence as xyz, why did you put that'? Then you have it cleared up and you know why. 

Marcon

TobyTell17 said:

Hi all 

hoping to get some advice on what to do. I was admitted to hospital for planned  surgery for a medical condition, I issued my line manager with a copy of the hospital letter with the date and time of my operation and consultants name. For confidentiality the surgery procedure was marked out. Since then I have been signed off by GP for post op recovery. 

I have noticed that my boss has recorded my absence on the HR system putting yeh reason for my sickness as originally ‘hospital inpatient’ to now ‘reproductive’. 

No where on my hospital admission letter or my not fit to work notes from GP does it mention what my operation was for. I suspect my boss has googled the consultant and found that he is a gynaecologist. I’m outraged by the means of which he has found this information and applied it to my sickness absence as opposed to me divulging any information. I feel this is really unprofessional and it feels almost as if it’s being dismissive and downplaying the importance of my procedure. 

I don’t know how to handle this, I question what privacy rights I have but also not sure how to question him on why ‘reproductive’ was recorded as the reason for my absence, in an attempt to high his unprofessionalism. 

Any advise is welcomed! 

Completely understand your sense of outrage, but I'm in the 'predictive typing error' camp here. Give your employer a call and ask if it can be changed to 'recuperation', which is what it was almost certainly meant to be.

theoretica

Not ideal, but presumably the HR system is locked down so it can only be seen by people who could also access the hospital note (and their own googling if so inclined). 

But also - what do you think your colleagues think you are off for?  They may be politely not talking about it, but I would be surprised if several haven't quietly come to their own plausible conclusions.

TobyTell17

Thanks all for your comments- I should have noted that actually I am a manager myself and so I use the same HR system to enter my teams absence. I know there is a drop down menu with probably 50 items hospital inpatient and hospital outpatient to name but a couple and at the very least there is a ‘other’ reason that could be selected. With the information he had I suspect operation and post operative rest could have been something he would write in the notes and then at the well-being meeting on my return he would ask me stuff like is my work affected is there something they could do to support me am I on any medication etc. from what I understand in the sickness policy they can only access my medical notes from GP with my consent- but they wouldn’t need to. 

As a manager I’m still somewhat responsible for my team and therefore still in touch and checking emails. My team know I’m off for surgery and post op rest, and obviously where I haven’t divulged further details respectfully they understand there is no need to ask and simply knowing I’m recovering well is the most important thing. 

So with that said, again it’s not the nature of my op I am embarrassed about- I chose to keep it confidential and on a need to know basis- I’m just outraged that my boss concluded something without discussing or getting any facts from me or the information I supplied and it feels very personal and an invasion of privacy to know he googled my surgeon. This I can’t control- if he was being nosey so be it, it’s the unprofessional Ian of using that research to add to my absence notes. 

My thoughts were to write an email (so it’s evidenced) and correct not only the dates (which he entered incorrectly) but also question why he put reproductive as my absence reason. Just not sure how to write it so I’m not making this matter the subject but how he came to have that information. 

I don’t want to be petty, but it’s a moral issue by which I feel I should speak up about so he stays on the right side of being professional. I work for a huge corporate company, unfortunately my line manager has zero people skills and doesn’t respond to any emails that are urgent but when it comes to people pay and/or benefits he seems to have a lot of time for this hence googling my surgeon. 

Savvy_Sue

Apart from your manager, who else can see this?

TobyTell17

People pay, HR and that’s it. 

Emmia

Is the issue "reproductive"? If it is there's nothing especially inaccurate with the entry - you'd rather have not have it recorded, but how many people can access the filing - are you blowing this up too much?

You should get the dates corrected, but honestly you risk making this the knowledge of lots more people if you start getting angry and complaining.

HR people don't tend to spend their time looking at records and "browsing" for personal information, so in reality it's been noted and it's likely one will look at it again, ever.