NHS Staff Sickness

[hidetheelephants]

surveyor said:

One of the senior managers has decided she should not work through Chemo, although she’s not really happy about that as feels she can work at home due to her role, and the team can manage on days when she is down and out. We are not sure what the fact she’s been told not to work means in terms of pay..

On what grounds can they make that decision? It should be her decision or perhaps occupational health, even if they're a doctor they aren't her doctor. Worth contesting it, having work to do could take her mind off the side-effects and help rather than hinder recovery.

[740EVTORQUES]

I’ve taken 5 days sick leave in the past 10 years. That was last year when I had Covid and physically couldn’t get out of bed for several days. As soon as I was well enough I came back in to do an operation that had to be postponed as I was sick. That was New Year’s Eve.

I’m by no means unusual amongst the medics I know.

So don’t jump to conclusions.

[surveyor]

hidetheelephants said:

surveyor said:

One of the senior managers has decided she should not work through Chemo, although she’s not really happy about that as feels she can work at home due to her role, and the team can manage on days when she is down and out. We are not sure what the fact she’s been told not to work means in terms of pay..

On what grounds can they make that decision? It should be her decision or perhaps occupational health, even if they're a doctor they aren't her doctor. Worth contesting it, having work to do could take her mind off the side-effects and help rather than hinder recovery.

Early days.. it’s a conversation she will be having after her operation and before the chemo.

Our initial priority was to book a holiday in the Caribbean before the st starts..

[Downward]

21TonyK said:

Not read the thread but I can guess the sentiment. Don't feel alone, its exactly the same in schools.

It’s the same in most workplaces but now staff are standing up for themselves.

There’s still a rotten culture in the workplace and it’s not even the older generation anymore. Pretty much the Over 40’s are the worst in terms of attitude and treating people like st.

[Downward]

asfault said:

Franco5 said:

Update! A Filipino speech therapist in the team is off for six months with stress. The guy has been recruited from the Philippines and is now sat at home on £35K at year doing nothing.

How the fk is that a stressful job.

Dunno depends what’s going on outside of work maybe ? Or he’s been assaulted at work by a patient or their family or bullied by the manager ?

What amazes me is the number of assaults on staff who work in maternity and paediatrics.

[djc206]

Downward said:

asfault said:

Franco5 said:

Update! A Filipino speech therapist in the team is off for six months with stress. The guy has been recruited from the Philippines and is now sat at home on £35K at year doing nothing.

How the fk is that a stressful job.

Dunno depends what’s going on outside of work maybe ? Or he’s been assaulted at work by a patient or their family or bullied by the manager ?

What amazes me is the number of assaults on staff who work in maternity and paediatrics.

The reasons why people need speech therapy are varied as well. An ex girlfriend of mine trained as a speech therapist primarily working with children, some of their stories were harrowing.

[The Gauge]

Downward said:

Forester1965 said:

Sickness isn't the biggest shocker.

That's reserved for NHS staff 'retiring', triggering their pension payments, then returning on 'reduced hours' whilst seeing their pay remain the same or increase. Double bubble.

Does this happen in the police where retirement can be from 50 ?

Retirement for some police officers can be as young as age 43 if they take the early retirement package after 25yrs service, assuming they joined at age 18. However they can't draw that pension until they are age 50 and this is a much smaller pension than normal.
Next trigger point is 30yrs service (from age 48 for some officers) or at age 55.
The new CARE pension that they are all now on can still allow the above, but to get the full pension they have to work until they are age 60. I can't see many doing that.

But to answer your question, some forces introduced a 30 Plus scheme where officers with 30yrs service could retire and then return to being a police officer. However their combined pension and wage wasn't allowed to be greater than the wage they were on when they retired, meaning they can only work 20hrs per week.

Many forces have now withdrawn this agreement and in an effort to get rid of all the 30 Plus cops, at least one force made them all go back on the beat. Many then left, so the plan worked, however those in certain needed roles were allowed to remain in their role. Not a bad deal for them really with a lump sum pension payout of £160k and then a combined pension and wage of £46K. Alright for some

Edited by The Gauge on Friday 21st June 23:16

[CoolHands]

It’s the long term sick notes that make it look bad. Most normal workers won’t have many days off over a period of years, but a handful of laggards having 6-12 months off sick at a time screw everyone

[asfault]

Louis Balfour said:

Franco5 said:

My wife works for an NHS trust and the stories she tells me about abuse of their sickness policy are scandalous.

The opportunities to game the system sound horrendous with the same people off for months on end every year with various BS minor ailments.

I looked up the policy and of course with this being public sector I found that it’s a load of overly complex tripe but looked like in any 12 month period they could get 6 months on full pay and 6 months on half pay.

Within her trust it’s common knowledge among colleagues that these people privately admit to gaming the system but nobody with any authority cares and/or can do anything about it.

This is not victimless as the waiting lists for the services these people are being paid to provide are years long as a result of their regular absenteeism.

I understand that there’s millions of NHS sacred cow believers out there who don’t want to hear things like this and that’s one of the reasons that the organisation will always remain terribly inefficient.

Yes.

I was at a cricket match a couple of weeks ago, chatting to a GP during the first innings and a consultant during the second.

The GP was moaning about not wanting to work for such long hours, "because of all the tax we have to pay". He seemed to be of the view that medics should enjoy lower rates of taxation than the wider population and, unless they did, they would be doing no more than necessary.

The consultant was saying that during recent strikes the work rate on his department actually increased, and the through-flow of patients was quicker.

You've only got to spend a few hours in an NHS hospital to see that it's largely staffed by the self-serving and the idle. Compare and contrast with a private hospital.

But, the NHS is indeed a sacred cow, you can't criticise the nurses.

I guess the idea of such a generous sick deal is that you are NHS for life. So if you are going to be in it for 40 plus years a 1 off event causing 6 months full pay and 6 half is overall still a good deal for the tax payer and country. But as others say it gets totally abused.

[ChevronB19]

CoolHands said:

It’s the long term sick notes that make it look bad. Most normal workers won’t have many days off over a period of years, but a handful of laggards having 6-12 months off sick at a time screw everyone

I’ve had, in the last 30 years of working, 3 occasions where I have been off long term. It was due to a serious long term health condition that has on occasion nearly killed me. Don’t assume everyone is a ‘laggard’, and don’t underestimate how guilty similar people feel.

[Countdown]

Franco5 said:

Update! A Filipino speech therapist in the team is off for six months with stress. The guy has been recruited from the Philippines and is now sat at home on £35K at year doing nothing.

Has he been off for six months or is he going to be off for six months? Your post isn't clear but (AIUI) sick notes are usually given for 4 weeks max so I'm not sure how anybody could predict his future sickness.

OTOH if he's been off for 6 months then how much sick pay he gets will depend on how much service he has. 6 months full pay/6 months half pay is only after 5 years service and its not just a case of handing in your sick note and sitting on the beach. HR departments should be being proactive in terms of referrals to OH, consider dismissal on grounds of incapability and so on.

[S600BSB]

740EVTORQUES said:

I’ve taken 5 days sick leave in the past 10 years. That was last year when I had Covid and physically couldn’t get out of bed for several days. As soon as I was well enough I came back in to do an operation that had to be postponed as I was sick. That was New Year’s Eve.

I’m by no means unusual amongst the medics I know.

So don’t jump to conclusions.

Well said.

[Downward]

ChevronB19 said:

CoolHands said:

It’s the long term sick notes that make it look bad. Most normal workers won’t have many days off over a period of years, but a handful of laggards having 6-12 months off sick at a time screw everyone

I’ve had, in the last 30 years of working, 3 occasions where I have been off long term. It was due to a serious long term health condition that has on occasion nearly killed me. Don’t assume everyone is a ‘laggard’, and don’t underestimate how guilty similar people feel.

Over the years in the NHS (25 years now) I’ve known personally 2 folk commit suicide due to work. Add in the 2 folk very recently, Andrew Haldane and Vaishnavi Kumar who both committed suicide due to work pressures.
Plus the Numerous colleagues who have been off with complete nervous breakdowns due to bullying I’ve seen, I don’t think joking about people being off sick is called for.
I’ve also know 3 family friends kill themselves due to work too.

Me yes I’ve been also had 3 long term sicknesses 2 due to management and 1 due to heart issues.
The issue is HR do nothing about the sickness records due to stress caused by senior management.
Ultimately for them it’s easier to replace folk lower down the career ladder.

[asfault]

I've learned HR are there to protect the company. Not look after you or actually make anyone accountable.

[Franco5]

Channel 4 no mention yet of staff absenteeism wonder why?

We all know the NHS zealots (dunces) will not allow reform so the cries will go out again for more funding.

Do other nations have similar documentaries and constant publicity about failing health systems. If not may be we should copy theirs. If they do may be it’s an impossible circle to square (no human system is perfect).

[CoolHands]

ChevronB19 said:

I’ve had, in the last 30 years of working, 3 occasions where I have been off long term. It was due to a serious long term health condition that has on occasion nearly killed me. Don’t assume everyone is a ‘laggard’, and don’t underestimate how guilty similar people feel.

Absolutely agree and I’m not suggesting that at all although it does read like that. I guess I’m making 2 points, neither clearly - one is that long periods of sickness affect the average so the number of sick days discussed sounds worse than it is for the ‘average worker’ or whatever term the media is using; and second that there are some laggards(!) that will be taking the piss and as above it affects the stats quite severely.

So yes I wrote my comment rather thoughtlessly

[CHLEMCBC]

Mikebentley said:

When I was a Senior Prison Officer I was in charge of treatment programmes for substance abusers. My Governor told me that there was a £100k grant that needed to be spent on remodelling a 40’ by 40’ courtyard on the drug treatment detox wing. This was effectively their outside exercise space. The money was from something daft like the Kings Fund.

I was tasked with locating and having installed seating and some landscaping, maybe a water feature etc. after looking around I discovered that companies were charging about £1500 for plastic pub bench tables. I called one up and was told if I purchased 6 it would be 50% off.

Well the meeting happened with all the stakeholders and senior managers and I was asked to present my proposal and costings. There was no way I could spend £100k and it was coming in at £15k. My proposed savings were shown and I was advised that by asking for a discount I was now at risk of accusations of some sort of “ brown envelope” situation. They also said if we didn’t spend the £100k we wouldn’t get it next year.

After that I told them to keep me out of it and went back to my day job.I think perhaps people should be incentivised to identify savings and rewarded accordingly. It does though show waste can happen when people are spending money that is not seen as their own.

It was a grant. Who were you saving money?

[asfault]

CHLEMCBC said:

Mikebentley said:

When I was a Senior Prison Officer I was in charge of treatment programmes for substance abusers. My Governor told me that there was a £100k grant that needed to be spent on remodelling a 40’ by 40’ courtyard on the drug treatment detox wing. This was effectively their outside exercise space. The money was from something daft like the Kings Fund.

I was tasked with locating and having installed seating and some landscaping, maybe a water feature etc. after looking around I discovered that companies were charging about £1500 for plastic pub bench tables. I called one up and was told if I purchased 6 it would be 50% off.

Well the meeting happened with all the stakeholders and senior managers and I was asked to present my proposal and costings. There was no way I could spend £100k and it was coming in at £15k. My proposed savings were shown and I was advised that by asking for a discount I was now at risk of accusations of some sort of “ brown envelope” situation. They also said if we didn’t spend the £100k we wouldn’t get it next year.

After that I told them to keep me out of it and went back to my day job.I think perhaps people should be incentivised to identify savings and rewarded accordingly. It does though show waste can happen when people are spending money that is not seen as their own.

It was a grant. Who were you saving money?

The tax payer

[CHLEMCBC]

Countdown said:

Your post isn't clear but (AIUI) sick notes are usually given for 4 weeks max so I'm not sure how anybody could predict his future sickness.

My doctor signed me off for 10 weeks a couple of years ago with stress. He would happily have given me longer if I had wanted it. Ex-army doctor locum for one of our practice GPs who recognised immediately what I was going through.

[Countdown]

asfault said:

CHLEMCBC said:

Mikebentley said:

When I was a Senior Prison Officer I was in charge of treatment programmes for substance abusers. My Governor told me that there was a £100k grant that needed to be spent on remodelling a 40’ by 40’ courtyard on the drug treatment detox wing. This was effectively their outside exercise space. The money was from something daft like the Kings Fund.

I was tasked with locating and having installed seating and some landscaping, maybe a water feature etc. after looking around I discovered that companies were charging about £1500 for plastic pub bench tables. I called one up and was told if I purchased 6 it would be 50% off.

Well the meeting happened with all the stakeholders and senior managers and I was asked to present my proposal and costings. There was no way I could spend £100k and it was coming in at £15k. My proposed savings were shown and I was advised that by asking for a discount I was now at risk of accusations of some sort of “ brown envelope” situation. They also said if we didn’t spend the £100k we wouldn’t get it next year.

After that I told them to keep me out of it and went back to my day job.I think perhaps people should be incentivised to identify savings and rewarded accordingly. It does though show waste can happen when people are spending money that is not seen as their own.

It was a grant. Who were you saving money?

The tax payer

It was a grant so it will have been a one-off. Why would they get it again next year?