Hi all
I have read and agreed with most of the sentiments expressed but would like to put forward a pragmatic slant.
If we are to ensure equity and parity to all employees:
· how do we
define 'genuine'
or 'weaker softer and
less important health reasons'? .
· When is too many appointments too
many?
· How far away is too
far?
Employees like to see that they are treated fairly. If we are allowing some to have treatment and not others because of our own interpretations of what is genuine or not, we run the risk of causing disharmony amongst the team we seek to care for (or not).
There have been times in my OH career that I have seen people who quite frankly I disliked because I felt they were taking the mickey out of a system. But does that mean that they are not genuine cases?
My advice is therefore this:
Clarify it in policy or sit back and cringe, but don’t start implementing ad hoc responses to some employees based on the fact that they appear to be pushing boundaries that haven’t been clearly identified.
If your policy doesn’t identify this as a problem, perhaps its time to review it, your working party may wish to decide whether to apply the policy to the current problem.
Best wishes
RGN RSCPHN(OH) BA(Hons) CMIOSH
Occupational Health Advisor
Peritus Health Management
I High Street
Brighouse
HD6 1DE
Tel / Fax 01484 722444
www.peritushealth.com
-----Original
Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Sarah Holton
Sent: 20 March 2007 07:39
To:
[log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [OCC-HEALTH] hospital appts and paid
time off work
There is a differnce as to how i would react if was the manager in
this situation. e.g.
CASE 1 - If i knew OH had got a report from the treating specialist so
reasons were know to be genuine and the employee was seen first appt
or last appt of the day so only a little late or going home a little
early. E.g regular appointments with plastics due to a significant
burn or regular appointments in order to go to councelling following a
significant death or trauma in the family
CASE 2 - However if the "medical" appoitment was for a weaker, softer
less important to health reason and more to do with patient choice and
the employee picked appointments at mid day at a far away hospital so
had a whole day off every 3 weeks
I guess what trying to say is if the employee can minimise the time
away from the workplace and you have a medical report with a good
medical justification it may be easier to pursade the employer.
There are no set laws describing this scenario - but worth looking in
diana kloss book and gretas book to see if any CASE LAW about this area
Good Luck - sarah
Quoting Chloe Coleridge <[log in to unmask]>:
> That's the line I was thinking on..anyone else any thoughts?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Sarah Holton
> Sent: 19 March 2007 21:47
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [OCC-HEALTH] hospital appts and paid time off work
>
> humm... could it maybe be thought of as the employers duty of care to
> the individual to stay healthy???
>
> Quoting Chloe Coleridge <[log in to unmask]>:
>
>> Dear all
>>
>> Can you advise me on the following from a legal aspect:
>> If an employee has a medical condition (not DDA) which requires him to
>> attend hospital for medical treatment (not ante natal care!!!) every
> 3
>> weeks, resulting in time off work, is there anything (law wise) saying
>> whether the company should pay the employee for this period away from
>> work, or whether it should be taken as unpaid leave/annual leave/time
> to
>> be made up later? Obviously individual companies have different
> policies
>> regarding this, but I wondered if there was anything from our dear
>> parliament on this matter.
>> Many thanks
>>
>> Chloe
>>
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please remove this footer before replying.
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>> http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in6232/aohne/
>>
>>
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>> Find out about Occupational Health Nursing Education in UK at
>> http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in6232/aohne/
>>
>>
>
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> Please remove this footer before replying.
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> Find out about Occupational Health Nursing Education in UK at
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> Please remove this footer before replying.
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> For Occupational Health jobs, go to http://OHJobs.drmaze.net
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> Find out about Occupational Health Nursing Education in UK at
> http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in6232/aohne/
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please remove this footer before replying.
For list archives and documents, go to
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FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES AND EVENTS:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/filearea.cgi?LMGT1=OCC-HEALTH
For Occupational Health jobs, go to http://OHJobs.drmaze.net
Find out about Occupational Health Nursing Education in UK at
http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in6232/aohne/
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For list archives and documents, go to http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/occ-health.html
FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES AND EVENTS: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/filearea.cgi?LMGT1=OCC-HEALTH
For Occupational Health jobs, go to http://OHJobs.drmaze.net
Find out about Occupational Health Nursing Education in UK at http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in6232/aohne/