Vigil at death bed

cornishchick

 My partner has rushed to be at his dad's bedside in hospital after a major accident. He is not expected to make a recovery . 
His employer is asking him to
A . Phone in every day to say he isnt coming in yo work .
And B a rough idea of when he may return
My partner is. Understandably very stressed  worrying how he will cope not only with the potential death of his father but then returning  to work. Quickly.
 Does anyone know his rights.
When my husband died i just went of sick for 2 months .  .

HampshireH

It's not unreasonable for him to follow their policies and phone in daily unless he is taking an agreed number of days annual leave. They do have a business to run at the end of the day and need to know who is going to be in work.


Perhaps if your partner doesn't wish to/isn't able to let them know daily that he won't be in he could book the leave or negotiate an agreed period of unpaid leave to a set date.

Emmia

cornishchick said:

 My partner has rushed to be at his dads bedside in hospitial after a major accident. He is not expected to make a recovery . 
His employer is asking him to
A . Phone in every day to say he isnt coming in yo work .
And B a rough idea of when he may return
My partner is. Understandably very stressed  worrying how he will cope not only with the potential death of his father but then returning  to work. Quickly.
 Does anyone know his rights.
When my husband died i just went of sick for 2 months .  .

I'm sorry about your husband, but from.the perspective of the employer they need to have an idea of how long your partner may be away - he's presumably still receiving pay / salary - so if he can't deal with daily calls, he could ask for a few weeks of unpaid leave, and then use whatever the employer bereavement policy is if/when the worst happens

Marcon

cornishchick said:

 My partner has rushed to be at his dads bedside in hospitial after a major accident. He is not expected to make a recovery . 
His employer is asking him to
A . Phone in every day to say he isnt coming in yo work .
And B a rough idea of when he may return
My partner is. Understandably very stressed  worrying how he will cope not only with the potential death of his father but then returning  to work. Quickly.
 Does anyone know his rights.
When my husband died i just went of sick for 2 months .  .

Could you make the phone call on behalf of your partner/confirm he does not know when he will return?

In terms of 'rights', https://www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants may help - but be aware that your partner's father, however seriously ill, is not classed as a 'dependant' so there are limits to what his employer is likely to agree to.

comeandgo

Would the employer accept a text rather than phone call then your partner could text at any time with the daily info.

Savvy_Sue

Marcon said:

cornishchick said:

 My partner has rushed to be at his dads bedside in hospitial after a major accident. He is not expected to make a recovery . 
His employer is asking him to
A . Phone in every day to say he isnt coming in yo work .
And B a rough idea of when he may return
My partner is. Understandably very stressed  worrying how he will cope not only with the potential death of his father but then returning  to work. Quickly.
 Does anyone know his rights.
When my husband died i just went of sick for 2 months .  .

Could you make the phone call on behalf of your partner/confirm he does not know when he will return?

In terms of 'rights', https://www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants may help - but be aware that your partner's father, however seriously ill, is not classed as a 'dependant' so there are limits to what his employer is likely to agree to.

Not all employers would accept this: our POLICY is clear that it has to be the person, rather than someone speaking on their behalf, but there could be times when that's not possible. 

And the expectation is that we call every day, unless we know we need more than one more day - in which case we say how long we expect to be absent for, or at least a minimum period, and then update the employer before that period ends if it's clear we won't be back when we thought we would! 

Does the employer have a policy for compassionate leave? Ours is five days, paid, which has always been 'enough' for me so far, but would not be nearly enough if anything happened to DH. So my options would be to ask for unpaid leave, which I'd expect to do at least a week at a time, or - IF he is not going to be able to return to work because he is not well enough - he can try to get a GP appointment and explain this: he may then get a Fit Note. However, he needs to be aware of his company's policy on payment for sick leave. 

I am sorry for the position he's in, but as Emmia says, the employer needs to know how long this might go on for: they have a job which needs doing, and if your partner can't do it, then presumably someone else needs to cover for him. 

74jax

cornishchick said:

 My partner has rushed to be at his dads bedside in hospitial after a major accident. He is not expected to make a recovery . 
His employer is asking him to
A . Phone in every day to say he isnt coming in yo work .
And B a rough idea of when he may return
My partner is. Understandably very stressed  worrying how he will cope not only with the potential death of his father but then returning  to work. Quickly.
 Does anyone know his rights.
When my husband died i just went of sick for 2 months .  .

Has your partner got a sick note? You say you had 2 months off sick so does this mean it's what your partner is doing but he still has to call in? 

If he doesn't, could he get one? That way he shouldn't have to call in each day? 

What compassionate leave does he get? Is he using this maybe rather than sick leave?

Is there an option for unpaid leave of he doesn't want to use sick leave / compassionate leave? 

Undervalued

cornishchick said:

 My partner has rushed to be at his dads bedside in hospitial after a major accident. He is not expected to make a recovery . 
His employer is asking him to
A . Phone in every day to say he isnt coming in yo work .
And B a rough idea of when he may return
My partner is. Understandably very stressed  worrying how he will cope not only with the potential death of his father but then returning  to work. Quickly.
 Does anyone know his rights.
When my husband died i just went of sick for 2 months .  .

Taken literally, almost none I am afraid.

Whilst most companies offer some form of compassionate leave, there is actually no legal requirement for them to do so. There is a legal right to short periods of unpaid leave for emergency caring situations with dependents. However, again taken literally, if somebody is in hospital they are being cared for so it doesn't apply.

If somebody is too ill to work following a bereavement then can obviously take sick leave in accordance with the company rules and will need a doctor's certificate after the first week. Again, most firms would offer at least some compassionate leave but technically they don't have to.

TELLIT01

Your partner could almost certainly get a 'Fit Note' from their GP on the basis of stress.  That assumes they can get to speak to their GP.  Sadly, many years ago I was in a very similar position and had a similarly unsupportive boss.  He actually wanted to bring my work to my house in a situation where my brother had literally been given hours to live.

DullGreyGuy

cornishchick said:

When my husband died i just went of sick for 2 months .  .

Sorry for your loss.

The reality is the majority of us understand that we will significantly outlive our parents which is notably different to spouses. 

It sounds that at the moment it is being dealt with as compassionate leave rather than sick leave. Your husband's GP will step in with a fit note if they need extended time off. As I've gotten older I've come across more colleagues taking time off for a parent's death but most have been in the order of a few days for the death and same again for the funeral rather than 2 months. 

TELLIT01

When my brother died suddenly and totally unexpectedly, some 40+ years after the accident I mentioned in my previous post, I was allowed 1 week basically self-cert sick as there was no formal system for compassionate leave.  As I was unable to cope with returning to work at the end of that period I had to get a medical certificate for additional time.