Diabetes and Work

[jay_vw]

Hi all,

sorry to bring up an old post, but hey, i needed a bit of advice on pretty much the same topic,

My situation is this:-

I have been working for my current company since March, during the interview my employer was clearly made aware of my diabetes and any time that had been booked off for the year, such as my wedding etc...

anyway, i am currently having problems with foot ulcers which are starting to cause me quite a bit of pain and have been referred to the diabetic clinics, 3 of them actually, 1 being the diatician, 1 being the general diabetes clinic and the other one being the foot clinic. Last week i had an appointment message left on my home phone asking me to attend a cancellation appointment with the foot clinic on the Tuesday, after asking my director if i could finish 2 hours ealry as to go to the appointment, he replied with no!!, so i cancelled the appointment as thought fair enough it is very short notice.

Yesterday i returned home from work to find 2 letters through my door, bith from the hospital, asking me to attend 2 appointments, 1 this forthcoming thursday and the other in a fortnight. So again i contacted my director and informed him of both dates, he has agrred to swap my day off on the one in couple of weeks time, but said no to the one on thursday. I challenged him and basically said that i have to attend this clinic as it is detrimental to my health, to which he eventually replied with you will have to take the whole day unpaid as i am not willing to allow you to finish early and he also added that the other director would be calling at my work to "discuss" this matter early part of next week when he gets back as this is "unacceptable".

Now i hate letting people down anyway and as most people, would clearly love to not have to go to clinics etc, but unfortunately thats how life is, nothing is perfect in this little world, my general concern now though is that only last week a member of staff was "laid off" due to being un reliable etc.....the company i have found out are very strict and set in their old school ways with the director being a workoholic, so i am kind of worried that i will be looking at no job this time next week for whatever reason. I have already had a talking to as such from one of the directors, where he brought up that apparently i have been moaning to other staff about my feet hurting a lot, and that was the only reason i was taken into the office and spoken about, so my working ethics etc are all fine and my progress is, as he informed me.

Sorry to go a bit, but as you can imagine i have worked all my life and i cannot afford, as pretty much everyone, to be without a job, especially getting married in 8 weeks time etc..., plus finding a job these days isnt exactly a walk in the park.

so any advice on where i stand etc would be great, i have read a bit about DDA etc, just wondering if they have the right to discipline me for any health related incident i suppose you could call it!

cheers Jay

 

[noblehead]

Jay,

Take this matter up with your personnel department (should you have one) if not contact your local Citizen Advice Bureau, having diabetes you are covered by the DDA and company's must make reasonable adjustments to allow time off for appointments etc.

Nigel

 

[Sid Bonkers]

It seems to me that the only thing that is "unacceptable" is the behaviour of your directors. You are entitled to take reasonable time off for legitimate hospital appointments.

Feet ulcers can be very serious for diabetics and I believe they are the main cause of amputations, it is very important that you make these appointments, better to keep your feet than your job, and if it comes to disciplinary action then threaten to take your employer to court.

As Nigel says contact your local CAB and talk to them.

YOU HAVE RIGHTS.

 

[cugila]

Nigel and Sid are right. Contact your local CAB or do it online in the first instance.

Some Employment rights are time related and you might need to have worked there for a specific length of time for certain rights to apply.

An Employer is not legally obliged to grant you time off for Clinic visits or such like. They are however legally obliged to 'make reasonable adjustments'.....to your workplace. As to whether or not they can insist on you visiting Clinic's outside of work hours is debatable....... A reasonable Employer would assist you however !

Here is some advice from a CAB leaflet about the subject of time off:

Your employer may allow you time off work to visit the doctor or dentist (etc) but they are not legally required to do so unless your contract of employment says they are. Your employer can, for example, insist that you make these visits outside work hours, that you take holiday leave or that you make the time up later on. You should check your contract of employment to see what rights you have to take time off for doctors or dental appointments (etc).

A link to the full advice guide:
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/e_time_off_work.pdf

As we have stated here in many of the Employment related threads.......get specialist advice. Try doing it yourself and you may well get yourself the sack because you are quoting something that may or may not apply to you. The CAB will tell you if you have a valid case. Try to persuade your Employer that this isn't for ever and that you just need to be seen occasionally. When you get appointments see if they can be done outside of work hours, I have often visited my Diabetic Clinic in the early morning (7am) and also last thing (8pm) sometimes they are flexible. There are aslo Saturday morning clinics for various things.

If you have to go into Hospital for treatment then you should have that absence reported as a sick day, that is not an everyday occurence.

Not sure how many people are employed where you work but if it is only a small concern I can understand the Employer's reluctance to give you time off. It really is something that needs a sensible discussion and compromises being made in my view.

This legislation is a minefield for the unwary and quite often relies on the 'interpretation' of the Law. I am no expert and as far as I can see we don't have any here that actually are skilled in this area of Law, therefore what you read here are our opinions. As you can already see, some are slightly contradictory....so get expert advice.......not anecdotes. You know it makes sense ! :wink:

Ken

 

[jay_vw]

as said - i think the best bet is to seek advice from CAB, my director will more thewn likely be paying me a vist some time either tomorrow or tuesday to "discuss" this, hopefully it can actually be discussed and is not a case of listen this is how it is etc.....

unfortunately, the clinic dont open till 9am and close at 5pm monday to friday, so it seriously colides with working hours no matter which way i go about it.

The workplace is a smallish company, however there are more than enough bodies within the company that could cover, i have managed to see how cover can be arranged and have suggested this, however this was not considered an option.

thanks for your advice all and hopefully things can get sorted, both with work and more importantly my health.

cheers Jay.

PS i will keep you informed of any progress, as by the looks of it i am not the only person with concerns for this subject.