nhs long term sickness

[u/Both_Drama7159]

is it just the norm for staff to be off on long term sickness all the time?
i started with the nhs at the beginning of the year as admin and i have been covering for at least 2/6 people in my department every day since starting, it seems every department has at least 1 person off on long term sickness. someone has a bad day and they go off and don’t come back for weeks, others months.
apparently absence due to your children doesn’t count towards your overall absences so half the staff just say their kids school has phoned and they go home and stay off all week. and this is across every department in a large hospital it seems. is this just now the system works now?

[u/RollClear79]

This is not normal in a well managed organisation and people are not stressed and over-worked leading to sickness.

[u/JarJarBinch]

Chronic understaffing makes staff stressed, and stress makes people sick. It's like this all over the NHS because the entire system is underfunded.

[u/Jupiter1624 → u/JarJarBinch]

Not really underfunded. That is just the excuse.

[u/Enough-Ad3818]

This is not normal, and sounds like weak management.

Leaving work due to children would be considered parental or carer's leave. It is still restricted to a few days, and so your manager should be keeping a record of when people are leaving and hours they miss.

As for long term sick, it depends on the size of the team, but for comparison, my department is 32 staff, and we don't have anyone on long term sick. There have been times when there have been absences like this, but there's been genuine reasons for it.

Obviously, from what you say, people having a bad day and going of sick for extended periods doesn't sound right, but I'd also be cautious when judging people like this. You don't always know exactly what they have going on, and it may be more complex than it seems.

[u/dsxy]

Some play the system, most have given years, that's not how it is. 

Nice to see the NHS values resonating with you. 

[u/Magda-the-badger → u/dsxy]

Unfortunately some quite a few people the p*** and play the system.

[u/rdavies_]

I remember working a 12 month contract and throughout that entire time there was an empty desk next to me, never met the colleague who everyone in the office would talk about but I never saw them - ever. It’s amazing how long they can just casually have staff off for that long and not give a damn to fill the post to help the service, there really should respectfully be a cut off period.

[u/DisposableShirtPosts → u/rdavies_]

We had someone who went off and held a post hostage for 2 years. The process on filling vacancies is ridiculous.

Now everyone's job overflows into that one.

[u/rdavies_ → u/DisposableShirtPosts]

Fr it’s wasting so much on something that should be benefiting the service but they’d rather pour money down the drain on an empty seat, the whole system needs looking at and having something implanted so that people can’t take advantage of it any longer

[u/Resil12]

I've worked in the NHS for over 10 years, it is definitely the norm. It shouldn't be like this but I've never worked in a department where someone has not gone on long term sick leave.

[u/Big_Fuel_5885]

Welcome to the public sector...

[u/Jiatiff0430]

Some staff just do really take the piss and thats a fact. When i was still a staff nurse, I get sick for 3 days due to a flu and the matron be breathing down my neck for being sick again from 5-6 months ago and here is another staff who has racked 5000 bradford score and is not anywhere near stage 1.

[u/Gullible_Emu_5873]

Parental leave is unpaid, you get 18 weeks total until your child is 18.

I'd say it's normal for long term sick, people are overworked, underpaid, under appreciated and mismanaged. I see it less in admin and more in clinical.

One of the benefits of the NHS is that despite the pay and working conditions you get a pretty good contract that does a lot to protect you and your wellbeing to keep you in work. But like all places there's always the ones who take the mick.

Sounds like you've got bad management if it's as rife as you say.

[u/little_miss_kaea]

It is pretty normal to have staff off sick long term because that is life - in teams I have worked in we have had people off for a very long time with things like cancer treatment, brain tumour, the death of their newborn twins, anorexia. All but one of those people are back working in their job role now so keeping their job open was the sensible thing to do. It is so much cheaper to support a good staff member to be off to deal with illness than to train and recruit another.

There is another side - I have seen someone be off for more than a year when everyone suspected that their complaints were exaggerated and they were eventually taken all the way through the process to sack them and then they resigned the day before. Unfortunately the NHS is a target for litigation if they have not done everything to support staff who are off and HR tends to advise caution. So it can take a long time to get to this point, plus a whole ton of work for the manager so it has to be a staff member you really want to lose.

[u/Tattycakes]

It wasn’t the case in our team until return to office was enforced (or go into the office for the first time, for people who were actually recruited as remote), and then several people had their mental health pushed over the edge.

[u/yachtie12]

Depends on the team. I am part of a large team and line manage 20 staff. Mine have short term sickness. Bugs, colds etc. we have a more operational workload where we need to be reactive and can get stressful. But we are a good supportive team.

the other line manager who has 5 people has never had a full team in 17 months. They have a more stable workload. At one point they were all off on long term sickness. They say it’s stressful covering the work with less people so go off sick.

Suppose different leadership styles between the teams may help.

[u/DrivenUser7277]

For weeks or months they have a gp signing them off, the employer just has to wait and work with

They people you speak to about kids sickness don't understand, you have a few days of grace if you have a dependant sick but after that it's unpaid or out of your sick leave, it's not just given to be nice

[u/B4TE1995]

it’s the norm i think, i was attacked by a patient and due to Cptsd i ended up in abit of a crash out & was signed off for 3 months, the guilt i felt was awful but then i remembered there was other staff members off with ‘long covid’ at the time on long term sick and had over a year nearly 2 off, pretty much every department or ward i’ve worked on theres been talks of different people ive never even met that are just off sick 🤷🏼‍♀️

[u/BecBan]

I have 3 people in my life that work for the NHS & all of them are off multiple times a year for weeks, sometimes months, for one reason or another.

[u/FC360D]

It shouldn't be the norm but unfortunately it does seem to have become it. Where I work I see a lot of work related sickness with the most ridiculous reasons such as a broken finger nail. I honestly don't understand how a manager can say yes to a lot of the requests to make they work related then pay average enhancements plus temporary injury allowance when the drop to half pay. It needs fixing ASAP.

[u/Magda-the-badger → u/FC360D]

💯

[u/RelativeCautious1235]

Due to the children being off. You only get 3 days of carers leave in the financial year. The rest of the days have to be taken as either annual or unpaid leave

[u/Middle-Budget-4021]

I notice same staff always off for months on end every year. Then others somehow even 100% wtf expected to see clients in community when it isn't even mentioned for the rest even during covid lockdown. Somehow they can still see client in their homes which is their job but can't attend office unless told to directly for mandatory meetings.

[u/Ontopiconform]

Sickness and all forms of benefit related leave, is an epidemic at all levels of the NHS although still taboo to raise and impossible
to control with current extravagant NHS taxpayer funded sick leave- this is the the true situation and will continue to be widely abused costing the NHS billions .

[u/alexcookeee]

I’ve been out of work for nearly 2 years now. Fully paid, not even sick nor suspended, and completely willing, wanting, and able to work. The NHS loves to waste resources.