So Tired - Put in a grievance and now sacked.

[Tired123]

Hi

I started my current job in the nhs last august. At interview I declared that I had to have surgery to my neck 2 years previously which has left me with chronic neck pain, and didn't see it affecting my work.
Progressively my pain and tiredness has got worse and in march this year I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.
I work 30 hours a week, travel 2hours a day to and from my place of work, but go home and at a weekend I sleep for approximately 24-30 hours to recover from the working week.
I mentioned this to my manager and she asked if I needed to reduce my hours. I have been advised medically to do this. As my hours of work changed at the time -working the 30 hours over 4 days I said I would give it a month to see how my new working pattern pans out. A month to 6 weeks later I was still struggling with work so asked to reduce my hours. My manager then told me that she wants to see letters of my diagnosis and would have to be referred to occupational health.
Do I have to show the letters from my rheumatologist or doctor? To me these are confidential between my self and the doctor. I have been made to feel lke they don't believe what I am saying and this is meant to be a caring profession?

Any advise will help greatly.

Thankyou

[stevemLS]

Re: So tired.

Hi and welcome to LB

Firstly put out of your head any notion that the NHS is a caring employer, it can be absolutely just as hard nosed as the next one in employment matters.

From what you have said, a referral to OH seems reasonable and is in fact, although it sounds crassly done, a measure of good practice that specialist OH advice is being sought - neither your GP nor your consultant are experts in occupational medicine and OH are absolutely the correct people to advise.

No, you do not have to produce diagnosis letters. They are absolutely part of your confidential medical records and they have no right to ask for copies. They can ask for proof of any appointments if you have had to take time off.

It is possible that OH would ask for consent to contact your GP and/or specialist, this would be to assist them in preparation of any recommendations and it would probably be in your interests to permit that. OH clinicians are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as any other healthcare professional though and your OH record will not be available to anyone else.

Hope that helps, sounds as though you are going through the mill at the moment.

[matt3942]

Re: So tired.

Good afternoon,

As the above post says, you are not obliged to show these letters to your employer, and your referral to Occupational Health (OH) should not be dependent on your doing so.

However, OH may wish to obtain a medical report from your GP or specialist as part of their assessment. They will require your consent to do this under the Access to Medical Reports Act [1998]. You may consent to this with a proviso that you see the report first. You will then have 21 days in which to arrange to see your report. After seeing your report, you may request amendments where you feel the information is incorrect or misleading, and you may withdraw your consent at any time within the 21 days.

There is of course the chance that withholding consent will impact the OH assessment, and you may not get the support you would otherwise be entitled to.

If your line manager is being difficult, perhaps you could speak with someone in the HR team.

Regards,

Matt

[Tired123]

Re: So tired.

Thanks for the replies. Feel a lot better now. I fully agreed to being referred to OH and if I have had to take time off during work hours, have taken letters. But the majority of the time I have had appointments on my day off.
Unfortunately there is no hr department where I work.
On Tuesday my 17 month old grandaughter became very poorly and I took her to a&e Tuesday evening with breathing difficulties. She was then blue lighted to a hospital 26 miles away with her mum. Mum is a single parent and unable to drive. I followed them after I had got clothes for them both. I got home eventually at 2am, Wednesday morning. I notified my line manager that I wouldn't be in on the Wednesday and explained why. I have got up this morning in a lot of pain due to the fibro and still feeling very tired. Today my line manager came to me and told me that I need to get my priorities sorted, what's more important, you family and health or work? Needless to say I was speechless.

Regards
tired

[teaboy2]

Re: So tired.

Your manager was out of order saying that to you. Nothing is more important than your health and that of your family.

You can take time of work under section 57 of the employment rights act 1996 the part relevant to yourself is subsection 4 which makes it clear that your entitled to take time of when an dependent responsible for a child reasonably needs assistance to care for an injured or ill child (i.e. grand kid)!

[stevemLS]

Re: So tired.

[MENTION=19071]teaboy2[/MENTION] whilst I agree with your sentiment, with respect I can't see how a grandchild in these circumstances falls within s57A of the 1996 Act.

57A Time off for dependants.E+W+S (1)An employee is entitled to be permitted by his employer to take a reasonable amount of time off during the employee’s working hours in order to take action which is necessary—
(a)to provide assistance on an occasion when a dependant falls ill, gives birth or is injured or assaulted,
(b)to make arrangements for the provision of care for a dependant who is ill or injured,
(c)in consequence of the death of a dependant,
(d)because of the unexpected disruption or termination of arrangements for the care of a dependant, or
(e)to deal with an incident which involves a child of the employee and which occurs unexpectedly in a period during which an educational establishment which the child attends is responsible for him.
(2)Subsection (1) does not apply unless the employee—
(a)tells his employer the reason for his absence as soon as reasonably practicable, and
(b)except where paragraph (a) cannot be complied with until after the employee has returned to work, tells his employer for how long he expects to be absent.
(3)Subject to subsections (4) and (5), for the purposes of this section “dependant” means, in relation to an employee—
(a)a spouse [F3or civil partner]F3 ,
(b)a child,
(c)a parent,
(d)a person who lives in the same household as the employee, otherwise than by reason of being his employee, tenant, lodger or boarder.
(4)For the purposes of subsection (1)(a) or (b) “dependant” includes, in addition to the persons mentioned in subsection (3), any person who reasonably relies on the employee—
(a)for assistance on an occasion when the person falls ill or is injured or assaulted, or
(b)to make arrangements for the provision of care in the event of illness or injury.
(5)For the purposes of subsection (1)(d) “dependant” includes, in addition to the persons mentioned in subsection (3), any person who reasonably relies on the employee to make arrangements for the provision of care.
(6)A reference in this section to illness or injury includes a reference to mental illness or injury.]]
Annoations: Annotations are used to give authority for changes and other effects on the legislation you are viewing and to convey editorial information. They appear at the foot of the relevant provision or under the associated heading. Annotations are categorised by annotation type, such as F-notes for textual amendments and I-notes for commencement information (a full list can be found in the Editorial Practice Guide). Each annotation is identified by a sequential reference number. For F-notes, M-notes and X-notes, the number also appears in bold superscript at the relevant location in the text. All annotations contain links to the affecting legislation.

[matt3942]

Re: So tired.

Playing devil's advocate... are you certain your manager was implying that work is more important? I only ask because it's easy to misinterpret these kinds of statement and he/she could have been implying the opposite.

Also, don't put too much reliance on S. 57A of the ERA - it only extends to grandchildren in certain circumstances, and I suspect it wouldn't apply here.

If you think your manager is being purposely difficult because of your condition, you should discuss this with him/her and failing that, make a formal complaint.

- Matt

[stevemLS]

Re: So tired.

As far as I can see it only extends to grandchildren where a dependant child is giving birth! (57A(1)(a).

Apologies for formatting by the way, I have no idea how [MENTION=49370]Kati[/MENTION] does it so neatly.

[matt3942]

Re: So tired.

Hi [MENTION=48758]stevemLS[/MENTION] - it extends to grandchildren if the employee is the grandchild's guardian or primary caregiver, or if the grandchild reasonably relies on the employee.

- Matt

[stevemLS]

Re: So tired.

[MENTION=67649]matt3942[/MENTION] - yes, of course, I see that, in which case they would be caught by ss4 - which as far as I can see isn't the case here.

But thanks for clarification of what you meant, I was beginning to think I was reading it wrong!

[matt3942]

Re: So tired.

[MENTION=48758]stevemLS[/MENTION] - No problem. Just a case of crossed wires. It's easily done - you posted your reply to teaboy2 as I was writing mine.

- Matt

[Kati]

Re: So tired.

Apologies for formatting by the way, I have no idea how @Kati does it so neatly.

neither do I :lol:

[jon1965]

Re: So tired.

Sadly and hard as it may be to stomach, all business is , in some way, about profit or at leat maximising the work done by employees and to them nothing is more important than completing your job. Some employers are less short sighted than others but even when they appear generous and kind it is only because they feel they will get more out of you in the end.
The law quoted above does only apply to dependants and kids, once grown up are no longer in the eyes of the law dependants . So says me who is being looked after by my Mum after an op and I am 50!

As already said , are you 100% sure you did not misinterpret your line managers comments.

Other comments made about giving permission details of your illness, they do indeed have to be sure you aren't trying it on and for that they will put inlace a set of inflexible rules -if one person needs to show a diagnosis so does everyone. I have just had to prove to my Uni that I have been in hospital so that I can take my exams as a first sit in September as opposed to a resit-and I am paying them for the honour of study

[stevemLS]

Re: So tired.

[MENTION=32643]jon1965[/MENTION] The only circumstance in which you may have to show a diagnosis is if you are asking your employer to consider reasonable adjustments in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.

In your case, it should have been sufficient to show you were in hospital between whatever dates, not the purpose for the admission.

Your summary of what "business" is, is a sad but true indictment of where we are. There comes a point at which employers must be hard nosed to protect their own interests and that of the other employees- some seem to reach that point very, very much quicker than others. I am very much in favour of a managers right to manage but they must first have the appropriate skills which appear to be sadly lacking in some (as here) cases.

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neither do I :lol:

[MENTION=49370]Kati[/MENTION] (I was hoping you would show me - mind, someone showed me how to do that thing where you split a post up and answer it bit by bit and I can't remember how to do that either - I used to be so good at IT, in my ZX81 days anyhow.

[Kati]

Re: So tired.

@Kati (I was hoping you would show me - mind, someone showed me how to do that thing where you split a post up and answer it bit by bit and I can't remember how to do that either - I used to be so good at IT, in my ZX81 days anyhow.

now for that bit I just copy and paste :tinysmile_twink_t2:
eg : [ QUOTE=stevemLS;551862] for the start of each section

- - - Updated - - -

[ /QUOTE] for the end of it