• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Discrimination

Lynz84

Well-Known Member
Messages
344
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Hi All

Faced an unpleasant situation today and would like your advice.
I changed to toujeo last year but the transition was rough and i was off work a few times with high sugars (felt awful!) I then was told im gluten and lactose intolerant and had a severe change of diet which of course meant fluctuating sugars and i was off a few times again. I have started reducing my insulin again as my basal was too high but i miscalculated and of course the sugars went soaring again and had to take tues off. In my return to work today my boss said that if HR decide to take disciplinary action and Im off again I could be fired. This has really unnerved me. They implied as well my time off meant I wouldnt be getting a payrise.
I understand their point of view to an extent but this year has been so tough to manage. Is this discrimination?
 
You employers are obliged by employment law to make reasonable adjustments to help you remain in work, and do your job effectively. There are no exceptions to this, and they have to discuss your health issues and what help you may need. It may only be small adjustments.

If employers are going to take disciplinary action in the event of illness or being off sick, or even worse, threaten employees with the sack, then we're going backwards as a society. They obviously know you have diabetes and it does indeed appear to be discrimination.

You can always contact ACAS to check your rights, and they will tell you exactly where you stand. It sounds like intimidation and discrimination at the very least though.
 
Sorry to hear that @Lynz84 Micky is right, your employer has a responsibility to ensure your needs are being looked after and their treatment sounds like discrimination to me, in regards to your rights, as a type 1 this falls under the disability act, there are a number of places you can go for advice on this, hopefully this will help:

  • Diabetes UK Advocacy Service, advocacy@diabetes.org.uk Tel: 0345 123 2399
  • There is also an advocacy self-help pack dealing with employment issues which you can request from Diabetes UK or download from our website. Employment advocacy pack (PDF, 197KB)
  • Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB): The CAB provides information and advice on a range of topics, including employment. Check www.citizensadvice.org.uk for your local branch.
  • Directgov: This government website has information about disability rights and employment. www.gov.uk
  • Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs). DEAs can offer advice and practical help for people with disabilities getting into the workplace. They can also offer advice about programmes and grants to help you back into work. Contact your nearest Jobcentre to arrange an appointment.
  • Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC): The EHRC promotes equality in England, Scotland, and Wales and provides information and guidance on discrimination and human rights issues. They have produced a series of guides on rights to equality which are available in their website.www.equalityhumanrights.com
  • Equality Advisory Support Service (EASS): The EASS provides information, advice and support on discrimination and human rights issues. Tel: 0800 444 205www.equalityadvisoryservice.com
  • Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) help with employment relations issues and what employment rights legislation means in practice. Tel: 08457 47 47 47 www.acas.org.uk
 

Personally I can not understand why being gluten free and lactose intolerant means you have to be off work. If you have the problem then a change to gluten free and lactose free is all that is needed and your health improves within days. (been there and worn the Tshirt). How high are you actually going when high?
 
Going high does not have to stop you going to work, this is something you learn to manage as and when necessary with insulin doses. I was never considered disabled by the NHS during my career or when I recently retired. Was unaware considered disability ?
 

Employers are allowed to have policies that limit the number of sick days you are allowed to take. Does your employer have such a policy? It sounds like they are trying to invoke it, so if I were you I would get hold of your sick leave/absence policy so you know what it says. I would also get hold of the disciplinary procedure and policies so you know where you are with that.

Invoking a sick leave policy could constitute discrimination if you are disadvantaged in the way the policy applies to you because of your disability and your employer hasn't considered reasonable adjustments to accommodate your disability.

So it might be that under the sick leave policy there is blanket rule that anyone with more that 10 days sick is moved into performance management/disciplinary and so is not eligible for pay increases. However, if someone is disabled and having a lot of time off due to their disability it might be a reasonable adjustment to be flexible with applying the rules of this policy to that person - so allow 20 days off sick. However, it does have to be a reasonable adjustment and the employer might be able to argue that there are business reasons (the size of the team, client demand, specialist nature of the work) that mean it would not be reasonable to make such an adjustment.

@Juicyj has given an excellent list of resources for advice/info. I woul add to check any insurance policies to see if you are covered for employment legal advice.
 

Yep. Type 1 is a disability for the purpose of the equality act. Any long term condition that would without treatment have a serious/significant adverse Impact on ability to perform day to day activities is a disability for the equality act. Without treatment, we would be dead, which is fairly significant adverse impact.

The idea is, we should get reasonable adjustments to accommodate the treatment we require to manage the condition and thus, hopefully, avoid becoming what we (or I, anyway) might think of as "actually disabled". So, it would be disability discrimination to refuse to serve you a meal in a restaurant if they had seen you injecting.
 
It depends on the effects that intolerance of gluten and lactose has had. It may not have caused too much disruption for you, but it can be very different for others.

The wife of a chap I used to work with was diagnosed with dairy intolerance and it had a terrible impact on her life. She was left with an inflamed gut, became unable to eat many other foods, not just dairy, and was very ill with all sorts of complications. She even ended up requiring a device to assist her with talking. The whole thing had a debilitating effect on her.

Ever heard of coeliac disease? It's a severe gluten intolerance and very nasty. My point is that it's not the same for everyone and what can be mild and easy to sort out for one person, can be far worse for someone else.
 

Yes I have Coeliac and am also lactose intolerant so yep I do know what it's like. It didn't stop me working and as soon as the problem was diagnosed there was an almost instant relief on my tum and the hypo's improved within 24 hours.

My point is stick to the diet restrictions not that there are many as most gluten free stuff is available to replace the gluten filled foods. Same as the lactose.
 
You should also know then, that it's not always as simple as sticking to prescribed diets. Personally, I have Crohn's, and while I have it under control now, I haven't always. And when I was very ill with it, it was more to do with having my health ruined by a combination of trying to continue working and severe reactions to drug treatments.

I have always followed a careful diet and it's the only thing that works for me. However, others with the same illness find following a diet doesn't work for them. They up on the merry go round of stays in hospital, trying all the different treatments etc, hoping something will work. I know one woman in Scotland who had been through 18 operations in a 30 year period. Whilst I have had two operations, my experience of Crohn's has been vastly different, and it does come down to how the individual responds to many factors. Sadly, it's not always simple.

That's the same with any illness, diabetes, coeliac, Crohn's etc, everyone finds it affects them differently.
 

As @catapillar suggests, many employers have a very simple for threshold for their Absence Policy procedures to kick in. Any first stage would usually just be to talk through the reason for any absences and see if there's anything that can be done. After that there are likely to be attendance targets to be achieved over a period of say 6 or 12 months, and thereafter stepped out on an escalating basis.

One thing I would suggest you do now this conversation has begun is to get yourself a copy of your sickness record from your employer. Many larger employers do this on an IT system you may have access to, or you may need to go via your manager.

When I was recently helping someone through their employer's Absence process, we were somewhat shocked by the quality of the employer's record keeping. This wasn't relating to any dates, but the reasons recorded for the absence. You would want to see a reference, or an obvious connection with your diabetes, not just headache (although your high sugars might have caused bad headaches) or upset stomach (if that was the actual symptom you stayed at home, say), that could suggest a dodgy burger (or whatever), rather than any relation to diabetes. See what I mean?

A final point would be, if it looks like you are ending up on the Absence Policy pathway, to make sure if you have to be off that you consult your Doc, so that it is recorded. Self cert is, to an extent, just your word for it. To be clear, I am absolutely not suggesting you're having lazy days off or whatever, but it's all about you strengthening your potential case. Even a telephone conversation would be recorded on your medical records (with a likely decent description of the issue).

relating to your salary increase, you may also get some clues of where to start with that if you can read the Absence Policy followed by your employer.
 
Hi. I'm not close to your particular conditions so can only make comments at a distance, but whilst the employer must be reasonable in handling your disability you also have a responsibility to keep absence down to a minimum as far as possible. Having high sugar for many people won't have a serious short-term effect which is why diabetes is such an insidious condition. Obviously in the longer-term it is very damaging. I was often in the 20s before insulin but only knew that from my meter. We are all different of course but perhaps stress was also coming into play?
 

Sorry MickyFinn,
many people including me manage to live a normal life and carry on working with diabetes gluten intolerance, lactose intolerance .

Yes life is a challenge I have the above plus Addison's disease underactive thyroid and a condition called transverse myelitis. Oh and as an added bonus I am riddled with arthritis from the neck down.

I can fully understand why employers will not take on people with diabetes if at the drop of a hat the excuses come in as to why you can not come in to work. Please do note this last comment is nothing to do with the OP it's just a general observation from seeing the comments over many years regarding peoples rights.
 
Great. I'm glad you manage it all well, and can cope. Personally, I cope better than just about anyone, but it isn't without a monumental effort. To be honest, I'm incredibly lucky to be alive because of such severe complications that were caused by Crohn's back in 2011. It was so bad I had to spend two years learning how to walk again among a raft of other difficulties.

However, I do now run my own business and I am far more active than most people with good health. I can also see how hard it can be because of those experiences, and things are never black and white. Just because you and I are okay, does not mean the next person should automatically be the fine just because we are.

I recently turned 43, and I regularly get perfectly healthy people several years younger than me, tell me there's no way they could do the work I do, and they don't even know I have Crohn's, type 1, and a third chronic illness that even most doctors have never heard of it's so rare. I don't tell them about it because they are my obstacles to surmount.

What I will not do though, is expect everyone to do what I do, and for everything to be the same for them as it is for me.
 
@Lynz84 Please can you explain a little more about what was actually said to you? Is it just a matter of you exceeding the allowed number of days off, or are you being accused of taking days off when you shouldn't have?
 
Great. I'm glad you manage it all well, and can cope. Personally, I cope better than just about anyone, but it isn't without a monumental effort.
Click to expand...

So what makes you think I and everyone else does not put in a monumental effort to mange the conditions that we have?
 
azure said:
@Lynz84 Please can you explain a little more about what was actually said to you? Is it just a matter of you exceeding the allowed number of days off, or are you being accused of taking days off when you shouldn't have?
Click to expand...
Hi there! Its more the amount of days off as opposed to it being accused of faking. Before I was diagnosed gluten and lactose intolerant I was very ill. Constant cramps, severe stomach disturbance, nausea, vomiting etc. Once diagnosed it took roughly 6 weeks for me to feel better and then i became so fed up with the whole thing i ate very little...which admittedly wasnt smart. When i go high im in the high teens which to some isnt that high but i am generally very well controlled so when im like that it brings on severe headaches, nausea and bad fatigue. Im a **** hard worker. I do overtime all the time, strongest in my team, take on extra responsibilities etc so i kno its not my work ethic. This years just been a challenge and im afraid the challenges may cost me my job!
 
Ok Check your work's sickness policy as suggested so you know the number of days and the possible sanctions they may talk about. A colleague (not diabetic) had more than the allowed days off sick and just had to have a meeting with his manager to explain why.

For the gastric issue, could you get a letter detailing that from your GP? That might help. I'm not so sure about the high sugars. I think it's a rare (or very lucky) Type 1 that doenst have high sugars sometimes. I think you'd need to show that they meant you couldn't work. It would depend how high you were on each occasion and whether you had ketones, I guess.

I would be nervous about going into work with ketones, but highs I just deal with. I think that's the thing you'll have to think about more than the gastric issues. Was there anything about your job and what it demands that meant you couldn't work with high sugar? Did you try and deal with them at work but couldn't?

I'm trying to see it from your employer's point of view and think about what they might say.
 

I too had awful symptoms before being diagnosed with coeliac. very ill and at times at work, sometimes I felt as though I was dying, but I worked part time, so not as many hours as you, though the boss seemed to think I wasn't managing my diabetes and that couldn't of been further from the truth. Not the sort of bosses ( husband and wife) I could actually say I was feeling so ill, because they already told me that I was there to work, they knew of my type 1 diabetes.
I hope things work out for you, also I hope it will be less challenging.
 
Thanks so much everyone. Really appreciate your replies and nice to know there are people out there with the food restrictions as well as diabetes...feel less alone with it all x
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…