Unauthorised leave question

[Starfish38]

Hello. A few days before a medical appointment, I let my interim manager know that I needed a day off (Wednesday) as annual leave, although I didn't say why. Later on, I logged in from home to request it officially and saw that the day had been entered already. This was over the weekend. On Monday, his replacement while he was on annual leave said that it had been refused. I then said it was a medical appointment and would be inconvenient as a non-driver to pop out and back again (which he asked if I could do) so I'd asked for the whole day off. He then said it would have to be unauthorised leave, to which I replied that it would have to be.

1. I'm not sure really what unauthorised leave entails, I had thought it would be unpaid and that there'd be nothing else to it - is that correct?

2. Today, I received an email from him asking for a copy of the hospital appointment letter - do they have a right to ask for that as there will be information on it I don't want to give. I didn't give any other information to him other than it was a hospital appointment at a lunchtime sort of time (I couldn't remember the exact time when he asked).

3. I've recently been off with a cold and yesterday he asked me to provide a self-certification form that I could find on the .gov website. I filled in what I thought was the correct form and sent it to him via HR who said it was the wrong form. Can someone provide a link to the correct form as I couldn't find another one on that website.

I have today (Tuesday) and Thursday as days off already as my two days off (I'm working the weekend).

Thanks for any advice.

[PallasAthena]

If you've said you wanted the day off for a hospital appointment it's reasonable for employers to ask for evidence that you had the appointment. The mere fact they are asking makes me wonder if they aren't going to authorise it after all.

If you don't want them to know your medical details you can black out those from the letter, although it may be obvious from other details on the letter which general area of treatment you are involved in, eg from the department name or the consultant clinic etc.

[Starfish38]

And what about the unauthorised leave question?

[atticus]

I think that the question of what is unauthorised leave is one that you should ask your company. Ask them what they mean, and what the consequences are. You can point out the initial approval.