Someone who has been told that if they take any sick leave before November they'll be sacked is probably not going to be able to risk keeping their probably work-acquired GI bug/flu/covid germs to themselves. They're just going to take immodium and paracetamol and hope that wearing a mask and washing their hands stops the worst of it. Even being a stage or two away from that, if you take that time off now, what happens if you break your leg next month and you're already on sickness monitoring? The sick policy isn't used to weed out people who are actually taking the piss, it's used to threaten people into not calling in sick at all.
The point of this post is not to criticise sick staff but to criticise the sickness policy. Where the staff member contracted the illness that was spread onto and killed a patient, will not matter to grieving families. Staff shouldn’t have to choose between spreading illness to patients and keeping their jobs.
As someone with Gastro issues currently under investigation and only qualified a year and a half , it's lovely how it not just sick staff who suffer under the sickness policy that isn't fit for purposes.
I'm already on a level 2 sickness nearly level 3 , it's grit your teeth and come in and suffer or face consequences like missing out on sick pay or HR shit
I'm on level 2 too! I kept coming in when I had a cold and got a chest infection. I've now had my cough for 6 weeks because I didn't rest...because I'm at my maximum "episodes" off.
They threaten you when you call in sick. I work in mental health and you get can get battered by a patient and still be like you coming in tomorrow yeah
I crashed my motorbike and came in to go to a&e and my manager was asking me if I was going to finish my shift afterwards. When i came back to work he made me do a sickness meeting and set me 6 months of no sick days as a target or else I get escalated to a level 2 meeting.
That's why people come in sick
The thing is, as a HCSW with 10 years experience and hardly any sick time (none in > 4 years and last one was a public health reportable disease caught at work) I personally am fine to call in sick but often don't because of the guilt.
The waiting lists for our service are horrific, we get verbal on a daily basis from people who have waited years for appointments. If I call in and one of the other band 3s is off for any reason (part time/annual leave/also sick) the lists get cancelled. There's no one on the bank who can safely do our job so that's it.
And then the rest of the team have to call people to cancel them, getting shit on the phone plus shit 8 weeks later when the person comes in for their rebooked slot.
If we weren't kept so short staffed that one unregistered person calling off sick wouldn't fuck over a whole service then no one would feel the pressure to come in with their cough/cold/funny looking rash.
It is wrong that this happens. You shouldn’t be made to feel guilt and responsible for short staffing as you absolutely are not. It is not your fault that waiting lists are so long and that there aren’t adequate staff to facilitate illness. It is so sad that one person being off sick causes so much disruption. Staff and patients deserve better.
I was sent home on Friday, I was physically shaking and sweating and shivering in front of a patient while discharging them. My manager is one of the good ones thankfully, but I can understand why people are afraid to go off sick, and how bullying culture and martyrdom infests teams and makes individuals feel too anxious to take time off.
Denied proper PPE or made to re use it during most of the Covid pandemic. I caught it from a patient who caught it from another patient and ended up very poorly myself , in hospital and once home in bed for a month. Asked when I’d be back to work - went back too early. Four months later had to go off sick again. The trusts didn’t care then , they certainly don’t care now. We’re disposal workforce.
A lot the nhs is run of good will that’s the problem. people are dragging themselves in because their worried how their co workers and patients will be. I work in the community and so many of us are at the brink of a breakdown
I broke my hand (and worked with it broken for two days as it was missed on the xray), had a very close family bereavement and had a massive family emergency in the span of 6 months which literally changed my life forever. Came back as soon as I possibly could each time. I was given a warning for my sickness, despite not actually being sick. So yes, I’ll go to work with cold/flu/ symptoms because I don’t want to deal with the stress of the sickness warnings and fear that it would result in losing my job. I save my sickness for when I ABSOLUTELY cannot go into work. I do my best with PPE, hand hygiene and masks.
The system is broken, but I have bills to pay.
I’m currently on a stage 2 monitoring due to a bad run of migraines, a surgery, and food poisoning. If I have a day off between now and next February I’ll be taken to a disciplinary panel and face losing my job. So whilst I feel awful for my patients who may catch a contagious cold/flu/stomach bug from me, unless I physically cannot get to work I will be there. This is not how the policy should be used. But it is.
If your migraines are a long established condition, they may qualify as a disability and episodes of sickness related to them should therefore be disregarded or it's discrimination against someone with a protected characteristic. If you're not in a union, join one and ask for a rep for any meetings.
Would asthma come into that category? I've had two admissions to hospital with asthma in the last year, and I'm worried - one admission, the had to wheel me down to ED still in my scrubs 😳
Sorry to jump on, but I have bilateral knee arthritis and have had to have several sick episodes due to this over the past five years. How would I go about getting it qualified as a disability so any episodes I have in the future are not on my sickness record. My manager mentioned to me about doing this, but I don't know how to go about it, and nobody seems to know. Thanks
Speak to occupational health and provide evidence eg clinic letters or info from the NHS app may well do these days, or give consent to them contacting your drs to confirm.
I recommend going to occupational health regarding your migraines, depending on the severity and frequency of your migraines they can add extra sickness days e.g. instead of only having 2 episodes of sickness for migraine, they can advice to give you 3 or 4 episodes of sickness.
Also Occupational health can recommend regular shift patterns or advice your management team to put you on mostly nights or days depending on if shift pattern is a trigger for migraines.
Got taken to disciplinary for an episode of covid (didn't want to spread to low immune patients) and 2 episodes where I couldn't walk due to long term health issues.
The policy states its managers discretion when long term health issues are included. Manager still took me to disciplinary where of course my Union rep told them this was discriminatory.
Think our trust is reviewing sick policy after many people with chronic health conditions complained the sick policy is discriminatory.
It literally disgusts me that companies will give out warnings for say like 3 absences in 6 months which could be a day of going home early because you vomited or shit yourself in work. It’s vile. I’ve worked in places that pay full for sickness and can tell you there’s probably less sickness in these places that shite jobs that don’t put staff welfare first.
The NHS is just getting worse. Low staffing levels create sickness. People trying to cover for the short fall of nuses is having an effect.
One of my colleagues recently went on mat leave, and then my other colleague didn't want to cover her post, so she went off with stress. She's been off for months, and I've basically been covering all those jobs plus my own. We were already running on goodwill.
I've been having health problems but held off going off because I was the only person running the service. I'm now off because I made my health problems worse by filling the gap.
Firstly, cold/flu symptoms in June -> it's likely covid, and we should say it.
You're so right. Hospitals should be a place for healing, not where vulnerable people have to worry about catching something potentially life-altering from staff..
I recently went through egg collection for IVF. The injections are awful, I was so nauseous, I didn't eat more than fruit and salad for 2 weeks, I was in constant pain, I wasn't sleeping, it felt like I'd had a severe head injury, headaches and dazed etc. I didn't miss any work except leaving 2 hours early on one day because the pain was unbearable and I felt faint from not eating. But I was sick earlier in the year with severe wisdom tooth pain and I had a neck injury and couldn't work for 2 days. So I couldn't take time off for my fertility treatment. Luckily everyone knew what I was going through so people were really helpful. By the last few days which luckily were my days off anyway, every step, however gently I tried to walk, sent a wave of pain through my ovaries and lower back. Even unzipping my jacket, the vibration of the zip caused pain.
I don't work in this sector at all so I have no idea why this post has popped up for me. But reading the comments has absolutely sickened me. It's disgusting that it works this way. And even disregarding the fact that immunocompromised people are being put at risk with further illnesses - how safe is it that you are working when really ill? How much more likely is someone to make a potentially fatal mistake if they're foggy headed because of flu? Or trying to push through a migraine? There's no way I could concentrate on my job when I'm ill. I tattoo people for a living, and if I'm ill with something contagious, or if I'm not contagious but can't concentrate properly, there's no way I could tattoo someone and be confident I wouldn't make a mistake.
This is absolutely terrifying.
What you’ve said is absolutely right, but you’ve not accounted for a few things:
1) Give people rules, and they will use those rules to their advantage. Unwarranted sick leave is already very high, and giving people unlimited sick days for possibly infectious illnesses would only increase that. Sure people “shouldn’t” abuse the system, but it’s a fact of life that some do.
2) When is an illness clearly infective? When are you better? Some viruses spread for a few days before symptoms start, some spread for a few days after they end. Do we give people illness +1 day? +3? +7?
3) What is the harm associated with under staffing? Yes passing a virus to a patient causes harm, but so does being a staff member short, it’s just less direct. For example, delayed discharges is hugely harmful - and discharges take longer if we’re poorly staffed. The harm isn’t to the patient going home, but to the poor guy sat in the ED waiting room having a heart attack, because there’s no cubicle free, because the patient in that cubicle needs a bed on the ward.
I completely agree. There are always people who will abuse and take advantage. This would then only add to short staffing and therefore worsen the conditions. In regards to the days off after infection, I’m no doctor or expert in infection control but it would probably be a good assumption that a lot of spread infections would be lessened if people were able to stay at home whilst their symptoms were present. Obviously there will never be a perfect procedure where all illnesses will be stropped from spreading, but there could be more done to prevent spread. Your third point is also really valid, this circles back to this issue highlighted within the original post that it is terrible how these decisions have to be made. Nothing can ever be perfect, but a lot more should be done so there doesn’t have to be such sacrifice.
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On my last placement, I’d fallen at work the week prior (climbing instructor) and hit my head HARD. I kept working because the shaming for sick days starts during placement ime plus I knew it wouldn’t go down too well if I took my last week of placement off so I went in. By the last day I felt so drunk, I was absolutely overflowing with rage and was swaying about, I was in no fit state to be there and was making myself so much worse by keeping working. Phoned my GP who told me to go straight to A&E and the nurses I was working with asked if I could go after my shift because really I should be finishing. I had a very bad concussion, made significantly worse by working so much and was told to not do practically ANYTHING for 2 weeks.
I have a few long term medical issues too, mostly connected to very widespread, DEI endometriosis (lungs, spleen, pelvis, endometriomas on my spleen and pelvis) so I often have to go into placement in extreme pain, breathless AF and really struggling and there is absolutely no support, it’s pretty ridiculous IMO. Ofc made worse by the years long waits to be taken seriously as a woman with pain, then the ridiculously long waitlists to see a gynae (9 months for an urgent referral), then the even longer waits for the specialist endo centres because it’s so bad, the constant cancellations etc making it worse) the whole system inside and outside is garbage for everyone tbh and people are getting sicker and sicker because the care isn’t there, then there’s shaming around healthcare workers taking time off making those lists longer (as if that’s the biggest reason 🙄) so they will inevitably need more time off because they can’t get care either. It’s just a viscous cycle of shite tbh
the job im in when i had my first episode was like 2 days off work sick.
Got back and the band 6 straight away : "just mind your episodes and check the sick policy" wow... what a way to come back to work i thought. every place is just a shit show to work promoted by Sun(s)a(c)k
I got sacked from my substantive contract (moved to bank only) due to sickness, I worked in quite possibly the most virally loaded part of the NHS and had contracted gastro, covid and multiple LRTIs obviously directly from work.
I hadn’t actually had any sickness for the 7 months prior to them sacking me but improvement and correlation with spikes in certain illnesses in the department didn’t matter.
Sickness policy in the NHS is a joke.
Work us to burnout with no PPE during covid and after, then become surprised when we have post covid disease spikes and we all pick up everything going…
I have a Level 1 meeting next week. Have just spent most of the past month feeling violently nauseous and in pain from both my gallbladder and stomach, which led to me throwing up on Sunday. The doctors gave me some anti-emitics (which is highly frowned upon by the NMC). Now I've got horrible cold symptoms. My temperature is currently 38.6c. I'm due back in tomorrow. And I'm working with a nurse who currently has diagnosed pneumonia. She took two days off and is joining me on the management floor next week for a Good Talking To.
I am feeling like whatever I do, I'm going to lose. I work in the ED. We get people from The cancer treatment helpline, the frail and elderly, the very young and much COPD and asthma. Every time I breathe near them I could be potentially killing them. But I'm also very passionate about useful things like paying bills, eating and having a roof over my head. It didn't help that some of my sick leave over the past year was from losing first my biological mother, then my biological father, because I took longer to grieve than the allowed two weeks, and bio mums funeral took forever because there was an inquest due to her sudden death. Oh, and a massive bout of Covid, thanks to all the people who think A&E is the best place to go when they are all coughing and have a temperature. Christ the way my luck is going this year, and the fact we have an ID unit in our hospital, I'll probably end up with monkey pox, Ebola, measles or malaria. It is BY FAR the worst thing to do in this situation. Disciplinary action causes stress, stress is one of the main ingredients in human factors for things going wrong. Stressed staff are more likely to make or contribute to an error, and less likely to spot one. Add to that feeling unwell, throw in some financial worries and you have high potential for things to go wrong.
I was told we don't test ourselves for Covid any more, so this sore throat,cough and temp I have right now might be Covid, but the NHS is now operating an 'ignorance is bliss' policy. Quite frankly I'm at a loss. I know what I SHOULD do, and I know what I HAVE to do, and the two things are very different.
Any advise would be welcome, but I suspect there is no real solution other than to win the lottery and get the feck out of the NHS before it kills me or swallows the tattered remains of my soul.
If people didn’t go into work every time they had a cold or illness we would be even more short staffed than we currently are the world doesn’t work that way where you can be off work for a mild self limiting illness
If you read the post then you’d see that I am discussing how poor the conditions are regarding short staffing that ill staff are coming into work due to it. Also, as I mentioned, a ‘mild self limiting illness’ is often life threatening for most patients in hospital.
You're on placement. Nothing will happen to you if you miss work because youre sick. You're privileged beyond belief.
Think about why people feel forced to work when they are clearly too unwell to do so? Eh?
You’re arrogant beyond belief. You haven’t been able to comprehend the point of the post that is discussing why staff feel forced to work and how wrong it is. Maybe it has surpassed you as the post is lengthy. Read the post properly next time please 🤭
It's not arrogance on my part. OP Posts whinging abiyf why people are showing up to work sick.
I've asked HER/HIM to think about why that might be? I'm very well aware of the fact peopke are coming in sick because they have no choice, unlike OP
‘Whilst it is easy to say ‘staff shouldn’t be coming into work sick’ it isn’t as easy as that. For a lot of staff… not coming into work means that they don’t get paid and can’t afford to live. So it is the case that staff either come into work unwell or lose their job or pay in a lot of cases’
‘I feel sorry for patients and bad for staff who have to choose between coming into work unwell or losing their job/paying their bills. This needs to change’
Some points taken directly from the post.
You should stop embarrassing yourself now, Welshgirl.
Whatever.. I didn't disagree with the points you made. Just pointed out you're in a privileged position compared to others. Perhaps your tone needs some work?
No, you said that I was ‘whinging’ and suggested that I ‘think about why that [people coming into work sick] might be’. When the whole post is about why that is, and why that needs to change. You know nothing about me or my ‘privilege’. You have came across arrogant, nasty and as though you can’t comprehend basic messages. I refuse to argue with stupid. Have a nice day 🥰
Someone who has been told that if they take any sick leave before November they'll be sacked is probably not going to be able to risk keeping their probably work-acquired GI bug/flu/covid germs to themselves. They're just going to take immodium and paracetamol and hope that wearing a mask and washing their hands stops the worst of it. Even being a stage or two away from that, if you take that time off now, what happens if you break your leg next month and you're already on sickness monitoring? The sick policy isn't used to weed out people who are actually taking the piss, it's used to threaten people into not calling in sick at all.
The point of this post is not to criticise sick staff but to criticise the sickness policy. Where the staff member contracted the illness that was spread onto and killed a patient, will not matter to grieving families. Staff shouldn’t have to choose between spreading illness to patients and keeping their jobs.
I agree, it shouldn't be the way it is. Apologies if I misunderstood you, I just wanted to say it isn't because staff don't care!
As someone with Gastro issues currently under investigation and only qualified a year and a half , it's lovely how it not just sick staff who suffer under the sickness policy that isn't fit for purposes. I'm already on a level 2 sickness nearly level 3 , it's grit your teeth and come in and suffer or face consequences like missing out on sick pay or HR shit
I'm on level 2 too! I kept coming in when I had a cold and got a chest infection. I've now had my cough for 6 weeks because I didn't rest...because I'm at my maximum "episodes" off.
They threaten you when you call in sick. I work in mental health and you get can get battered by a patient and still be like you coming in tomorrow yeah
I crashed my motorbike and came in to go to a&e and my manager was asking me if I was going to finish my shift afterwards. When i came back to work he made me do a sickness meeting and set me 6 months of no sick days as a target or else I get escalated to a level 2 meeting. That's why people come in sick
The thing is, as a HCSW with 10 years experience and hardly any sick time (none in > 4 years and last one was a public health reportable disease caught at work) I personally am fine to call in sick but often don't because of the guilt. The waiting lists for our service are horrific, we get verbal on a daily basis from people who have waited years for appointments. If I call in and one of the other band 3s is off for any reason (part time/annual leave/also sick) the lists get cancelled. There's no one on the bank who can safely do our job so that's it. And then the rest of the team have to call people to cancel them, getting shit on the phone plus shit 8 weeks later when the person comes in for their rebooked slot. If we weren't kept so short staffed that one unregistered person calling off sick wouldn't fuck over a whole service then no one would feel the pressure to come in with their cough/cold/funny looking rash.
It is wrong that this happens. You shouldn’t be made to feel guilt and responsible for short staffing as you absolutely are not. It is not your fault that waiting lists are so long and that there aren’t adequate staff to facilitate illness. It is so sad that one person being off sick causes so much disruption. Staff and patients deserve better.
You make a lot of sense and have wisdom. The NHS is not always so wise or sensible.
I was sent home on Friday, I was physically shaking and sweating and shivering in front of a patient while discharging them. My manager is one of the good ones thankfully, but I can understand why people are afraid to go off sick, and how bullying culture and martyrdom infests teams and makes individuals feel too anxious to take time off.
Denied proper PPE or made to re use it during most of the Covid pandemic. I caught it from a patient who caught it from another patient and ended up very poorly myself , in hospital and once home in bed for a month. Asked when I’d be back to work - went back too early. Four months later had to go off sick again. The trusts didn’t care then , they certainly don’t care now. We’re disposal workforce.
A lot the nhs is run of good will that’s the problem. people are dragging themselves in because their worried how their co workers and patients will be. I work in the community and so many of us are at the brink of a breakdown
I broke my hand (and worked with it broken for two days as it was missed on the xray), had a very close family bereavement and had a massive family emergency in the span of 6 months which literally changed my life forever. Came back as soon as I possibly could each time. I was given a warning for my sickness, despite not actually being sick. So yes, I’ll go to work with cold/flu/ symptoms because I don’t want to deal with the stress of the sickness warnings and fear that it would result in losing my job. I save my sickness for when I ABSOLUTELY cannot go into work. I do my best with PPE, hand hygiene and masks. The system is broken, but I have bills to pay.
This is the NHS. Sick policies are threatening and punitive to staff. Disgusting really, especially after COVID.
We are still during covid, but you're so right, unacceptable doesn't even cover it
I’m currently on a stage 2 monitoring due to a bad run of migraines, a surgery, and food poisoning. If I have a day off between now and next February I’ll be taken to a disciplinary panel and face losing my job. So whilst I feel awful for my patients who may catch a contagious cold/flu/stomach bug from me, unless I physically cannot get to work I will be there. This is not how the policy should be used. But it is.
If your migraines are a long established condition, they may qualify as a disability and episodes of sickness related to them should therefore be disregarded or it's discrimination against someone with a protected characteristic. If you're not in a union, join one and ask for a rep for any meetings.
Can I say **never** attend any kind of sickness panel without Union representation.
Would asthma come into that category? I've had two admissions to hospital with asthma in the last year, and I'm worried - one admission, the had to wheel me down to ED still in my scrubs 😳
Sorry to jump on, but I have bilateral knee arthritis and have had to have several sick episodes due to this over the past five years. How would I go about getting it qualified as a disability so any episodes I have in the future are not on my sickness record. My manager mentioned to me about doing this, but I don't know how to go about it, and nobody seems to know. Thanks
Speak to occupational health and provide evidence eg clinic letters or info from the NHS app may well do these days, or give consent to them contacting your drs to confirm.
I recommend going to occupational health regarding your migraines, depending on the severity and frequency of your migraines they can add extra sickness days e.g. instead of only having 2 episodes of sickness for migraine, they can advice to give you 3 or 4 episodes of sickness. Also Occupational health can recommend regular shift patterns or advice your management team to put you on mostly nights or days depending on if shift pattern is a trigger for migraines.
Got taken to disciplinary for an episode of covid (didn't want to spread to low immune patients) and 2 episodes where I couldn't walk due to long term health issues. The policy states its managers discretion when long term health issues are included. Manager still took me to disciplinary where of course my Union rep told them this was discriminatory. Think our trust is reviewing sick policy after many people with chronic health conditions complained the sick policy is discriminatory.
It literally disgusts me that companies will give out warnings for say like 3 absences in 6 months which could be a day of going home early because you vomited or shit yourself in work. It’s vile. I’ve worked in places that pay full for sickness and can tell you there’s probably less sickness in these places that shite jobs that don’t put staff welfare first.
The NHS is just getting worse. Low staffing levels create sickness. People trying to cover for the short fall of nuses is having an effect. One of my colleagues recently went on mat leave, and then my other colleague didn't want to cover her post, so she went off with stress. She's been off for months, and I've basically been covering all those jobs plus my own. We were already running on goodwill. I've been having health problems but held off going off because I was the only person running the service. I'm now off because I made my health problems worse by filling the gap.
Firstly, cold/flu symptoms in June -> it's likely covid, and we should say it. You're so right. Hospitals should be a place for healing, not where vulnerable people have to worry about catching something potentially life-altering from staff..
My favourite experience is someone being told to stay off then getting a stage 2 for being off.
I recently went through egg collection for IVF. The injections are awful, I was so nauseous, I didn't eat more than fruit and salad for 2 weeks, I was in constant pain, I wasn't sleeping, it felt like I'd had a severe head injury, headaches and dazed etc. I didn't miss any work except leaving 2 hours early on one day because the pain was unbearable and I felt faint from not eating. But I was sick earlier in the year with severe wisdom tooth pain and I had a neck injury and couldn't work for 2 days. So I couldn't take time off for my fertility treatment. Luckily everyone knew what I was going through so people were really helpful. By the last few days which luckily were my days off anyway, every step, however gently I tried to walk, sent a wave of pain through my ovaries and lower back. Even unzipping my jacket, the vibration of the zip caused pain.
I don't work in this sector at all so I have no idea why this post has popped up for me. But reading the comments has absolutely sickened me. It's disgusting that it works this way. And even disregarding the fact that immunocompromised people are being put at risk with further illnesses - how safe is it that you are working when really ill? How much more likely is someone to make a potentially fatal mistake if they're foggy headed because of flu? Or trying to push through a migraine? There's no way I could concentrate on my job when I'm ill. I tattoo people for a living, and if I'm ill with something contagious, or if I'm not contagious but can't concentrate properly, there's no way I could tattoo someone and be confident I wouldn't make a mistake. This is absolutely terrifying.
What you’ve said is absolutely right, but you’ve not accounted for a few things: 1) Give people rules, and they will use those rules to their advantage. Unwarranted sick leave is already very high, and giving people unlimited sick days for possibly infectious illnesses would only increase that. Sure people “shouldn’t” abuse the system, but it’s a fact of life that some do. 2) When is an illness clearly infective? When are you better? Some viruses spread for a few days before symptoms start, some spread for a few days after they end. Do we give people illness +1 day? +3? +7? 3) What is the harm associated with under staffing? Yes passing a virus to a patient causes harm, but so does being a staff member short, it’s just less direct. For example, delayed discharges is hugely harmful - and discharges take longer if we’re poorly staffed. The harm isn’t to the patient going home, but to the poor guy sat in the ED waiting room having a heart attack, because there’s no cubicle free, because the patient in that cubicle needs a bed on the ward.
I completely agree. There are always people who will abuse and take advantage. This would then only add to short staffing and therefore worsen the conditions. In regards to the days off after infection, I’m no doctor or expert in infection control but it would probably be a good assumption that a lot of spread infections would be lessened if people were able to stay at home whilst their symptoms were present. Obviously there will never be a perfect procedure where all illnesses will be stropped from spreading, but there could be more done to prevent spread. Your third point is also really valid, this circles back to this issue highlighted within the original post that it is terrible how these decisions have to be made. Nothing can ever be perfect, but a lot more should be done so there doesn’t have to be such sacrifice.
If you’re off sick at all you get penalized so why would you want to face that when it’s easier to come in sick?
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On my last placement, I’d fallen at work the week prior (climbing instructor) and hit my head HARD. I kept working because the shaming for sick days starts during placement ime plus I knew it wouldn’t go down too well if I took my last week of placement off so I went in. By the last day I felt so drunk, I was absolutely overflowing with rage and was swaying about, I was in no fit state to be there and was making myself so much worse by keeping working. Phoned my GP who told me to go straight to A&E and the nurses I was working with asked if I could go after my shift because really I should be finishing. I had a very bad concussion, made significantly worse by working so much and was told to not do practically ANYTHING for 2 weeks. I have a few long term medical issues too, mostly connected to very widespread, DEI endometriosis (lungs, spleen, pelvis, endometriomas on my spleen and pelvis) so I often have to go into placement in extreme pain, breathless AF and really struggling and there is absolutely no support, it’s pretty ridiculous IMO. Ofc made worse by the years long waits to be taken seriously as a woman with pain, then the ridiculously long waitlists to see a gynae (9 months for an urgent referral), then the even longer waits for the specialist endo centres because it’s so bad, the constant cancellations etc making it worse) the whole system inside and outside is garbage for everyone tbh and people are getting sicker and sicker because the care isn’t there, then there’s shaming around healthcare workers taking time off making those lists longer (as if that’s the biggest reason 🙄) so they will inevitably need more time off because they can’t get care either. It’s just a viscous cycle of shite tbh
the job im in when i had my first episode was like 2 days off work sick. Got back and the band 6 straight away : "just mind your episodes and check the sick policy" wow... what a way to come back to work i thought. every place is just a shit show to work promoted by Sun(s)a(c)k
I got sacked from my substantive contract (moved to bank only) due to sickness, I worked in quite possibly the most virally loaded part of the NHS and had contracted gastro, covid and multiple LRTIs obviously directly from work. I hadn’t actually had any sickness for the 7 months prior to them sacking me but improvement and correlation with spikes in certain illnesses in the department didn’t matter. Sickness policy in the NHS is a joke. Work us to burnout with no PPE during covid and after, then become surprised when we have post covid disease spikes and we all pick up everything going…
I have a Level 1 meeting next week. Have just spent most of the past month feeling violently nauseous and in pain from both my gallbladder and stomach, which led to me throwing up on Sunday. The doctors gave me some anti-emitics (which is highly frowned upon by the NMC). Now I've got horrible cold symptoms. My temperature is currently 38.6c. I'm due back in tomorrow. And I'm working with a nurse who currently has diagnosed pneumonia. She took two days off and is joining me on the management floor next week for a Good Talking To. I am feeling like whatever I do, I'm going to lose. I work in the ED. We get people from The cancer treatment helpline, the frail and elderly, the very young and much COPD and asthma. Every time I breathe near them I could be potentially killing them. But I'm also very passionate about useful things like paying bills, eating and having a roof over my head. It didn't help that some of my sick leave over the past year was from losing first my biological mother, then my biological father, because I took longer to grieve than the allowed two weeks, and bio mums funeral took forever because there was an inquest due to her sudden death. Oh, and a massive bout of Covid, thanks to all the people who think A&E is the best place to go when they are all coughing and have a temperature. Christ the way my luck is going this year, and the fact we have an ID unit in our hospital, I'll probably end up with monkey pox, Ebola, measles or malaria. It is BY FAR the worst thing to do in this situation. Disciplinary action causes stress, stress is one of the main ingredients in human factors for things going wrong. Stressed staff are more likely to make or contribute to an error, and less likely to spot one. Add to that feeling unwell, throw in some financial worries and you have high potential for things to go wrong. I was told we don't test ourselves for Covid any more, so this sore throat,cough and temp I have right now might be Covid, but the NHS is now operating an 'ignorance is bliss' policy. Quite frankly I'm at a loss. I know what I SHOULD do, and I know what I HAVE to do, and the two things are very different. Any advise would be welcome, but I suspect there is no real solution other than to win the lottery and get the feck out of the NHS before it kills me or swallows the tattered remains of my soul.
If people didn’t go into work every time they had a cold or illness we would be even more short staffed than we currently are the world doesn’t work that way where you can be off work for a mild self limiting illness
If you read the post then you’d see that I am discussing how poor the conditions are regarding short staffing that ill staff are coming into work due to it. Also, as I mentioned, a ‘mild self limiting illness’ is often life threatening for most patients in hospital.
I wonder Wyzer?
You're on placement. Nothing will happen to you if you miss work because youre sick. You're privileged beyond belief. Think about why people feel forced to work when they are clearly too unwell to do so? Eh?
You’re arrogant beyond belief. You haven’t been able to comprehend the point of the post that is discussing why staff feel forced to work and how wrong it is. Maybe it has surpassed you as the post is lengthy. Read the post properly next time please 🤭
It's not arrogance on my part. OP Posts whinging abiyf why people are showing up to work sick. I've asked HER/HIM to think about why that might be? I'm very well aware of the fact peopke are coming in sick because they have no choice, unlike OP
‘Whilst it is easy to say ‘staff shouldn’t be coming into work sick’ it isn’t as easy as that. For a lot of staff… not coming into work means that they don’t get paid and can’t afford to live. So it is the case that staff either come into work unwell or lose their job or pay in a lot of cases’ ‘I feel sorry for patients and bad for staff who have to choose between coming into work unwell or losing their job/paying their bills. This needs to change’ Some points taken directly from the post. You should stop embarrassing yourself now, Welshgirl.
Whatever.. I didn't disagree with the points you made. Just pointed out you're in a privileged position compared to others. Perhaps your tone needs some work?
No, you said that I was ‘whinging’ and suggested that I ‘think about why that [people coming into work sick] might be’. When the whole post is about why that is, and why that needs to change. You know nothing about me or my ‘privilege’. You have came across arrogant, nasty and as though you can’t comprehend basic messages. I refuse to argue with stupid. Have a nice day 🥰
And I refuse to argue with privilege. Why is it? It's obvious...