Time off to care for wife after surgery - what are my rights?

Stu666

My wife is due to have major surgery in the near future with an estimated recovery period of 4 - 6 weeks. I was thinking of taking a week or so off work to help care for her in the early stages when she's not going to be very mobile.

I work in the public sector and have used up most of this year's annual leave allowance. What little I do have remaining is needed for the Christmas shutdown period. With this in mind, I was wondering what, if any, rights I have to take leave. Looking at my employee handbook, it looks like I would have to take unpaid leave. Does this sound correct?

lincroft1710

Yes, unpaid leave does sound correct if you have used up all your current annual leave allowance and cannot have an advance from next year's A/L. It is doubtful your employer has a scheme whereby employees can have paid special leave in such circumstances, but obviously check 

springmagpie

Does your employer have carers leave? or dependent's leave? 

Mark_d

I believe you have the right to a limited/reasonable amount of time off.  This would be unpaid unless your employer is generous.

Jude57

Mark_d said:

I believe you have the right to a limited/reasonable amount of time off.  This would be unpaid unless your employer is generous.

Very often that's only applicable to emergency situations so that the employee has time to organise longer-term care or support and isn't usually a very long period, in my experience it's a day or two at most.

Marcon

Stu666 said:

My wife is due to have major surgery in the near future with an estimated recovery period of 4 - 6 weeks. I was thinking of taking a week or so off work to help care for her in the early stages when she's not going to be very mobile.

I work in the public sector and have used up most of this year's annual leave allowance. What little I do have remaining is needed for the Christmas shutdown period. With this in mind, I was wondering what, if any, rights I have to take leave. Looking at my employee handbook, it looks like I would have to take unpaid leave. Does this sound correct?

See https://www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants and note: 'You cannot have time off if you knew about a situation beforehand.'

So definitely one to discuss with your employer and agree what unpaid leave (if any) they will allow you to take.

EnPointe

Stu666 said:

My wife is due to have major surgery in the near future with an estimated recovery period of 4 - 6 weeks. I was thinking of taking a week or so off work to help care for her in the early stages when she's not going to be very mobile.

I work in the public sector and have used up most of this year's annual leave allowance. What little I do have remaining is needed for the Christmas shutdown period. With this in mind, I was wondering what, if any, rights I have to take leave. Looking at my employee handbook, it looks like I would have to take unpaid leave. Does this sound correct?

unpaid leave assuming the department leave  (time) budget  allows 

EnPointe

springmagpie said:

Does your employer have carers leave? or dependent's leave? 

 those are designed for emergency situatiosn such as failure of care arrangements of where  your child (or other  relative  you are a carer for ) is taken acutely unwell 

the options i nthe OPs situation are  paid leave if they have the hours  available or unpaid 

theoretica

Can you do any of your job from home?  Asking about more working from home than normally permitted might enable you to combine caring and some working.

TELLIT01

Legal rights to paid time off - none whatsoever.  Legal right to unpaid leave is the same.  It's entirely down to the organisation you work for to determine what they will do.

Undervalued

Stu666 said:

My wife is due to have major surgery in the near future with an estimated recovery period of 4 - 6 weeks. I was thinking of taking a week or so off work to help care for her in the early stages when she's not going to be very mobile.

I work in the public sector and have used up most of this year's annual leave allowance. What little I do have remaining is needed for the Christmas shutdown period. With this in mind, I was wondering what, if any, rights I have to take leave. Looking at my employee handbook, it looks like I would have to take unpaid leave. Does this sound correct?

The legal minimum is that you have the right to "short" (undefined) periods of unpaid leave to care for a person who reasonably depends on you for their care in an "emergency" (again undefined) situation. That is all.

Short is normally interpreted as a day or two to arrange care, not a long period of time to provide the care yourself.

Emergency is normally interpreted as sudden and unexpected, which discharge following a planned operation arguably isn't.

However your employment contract may very well give you far more generous terms than the legal minimum. You need to ask them and review your employee handbook or similar.