sickness whilst at work

[crazygirly]

Hi All

Ive worked in my present job for 6 years. Recently i have been ill and not able to make it into work but always notified work. I have been told that i am now over the trust target for being off sick and if it happens again then HR will be involved and i have also been told that it may lead to a disciplinary. I work from 9 am until 5pm but the other day i had to leave work early as i had the start of a migraine. i left work 1 hour and 20 minutes early. Could i be in trouble?

[woofgang]

NHS organisations will have a policy for handling sickness absence both to ensure that employees aren't taking the mick and to safeguard their health. You should be able to get a copy of this policy and see what it says. Genuine illness must be treated fairly but if you are having regular spells of sickness absence which are impacting your job, the employer may want to consider changing your job or job hours so that you will be able to go back to full attendance.

Ask for a copy of the relevant policies.

[factor-fiction]

Yes, we can't say for certain. In my experience such a short absence is unlikely to trigger the next stage in the process

[rowanwitch]

In my experience as an NHS employee with a lot of health issues
HR are mainly involved in the early stages with things like occupational health reviews and looking at ways of helping you improve attendance, I suspect you had a lot of short one and two day absences.
If despite support and medical clearance you still have a lot of sick leave then they will start the many stages of the disciplinary process. You wll still have opportunities to improve without serious consequences until the final stages are reached
Early departures if you have worked the majority of your shift probably won't trigger the sickness system. But if you manager felt it wasn't genuine they might make a note against the date.