- Conference
- 2011 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 2 December 2010
- Decision
- Carried
Recognising that there is a fundamental issue of what kind of society we are going to fight for in this new millennium as part of an NHS providing services to meet the needs of all. Recognising that staff should be treated in a humane way on everything including sickness to meet those needs of the health service. Recognising that any attempt to use disciplinary procedures against staff who are unable to work because of genuine sickness should never be tolerated in a modern society.
Conference calls on the Service Group Executive to enforce:
1) The responsibility of the employer in the Agenda for Change Agreement to “manage absences under the locally agreed sickness absence procedure”. They should be challenged if they attempt to impose sickness procedure outside of local agreement with the trade unions.
2) That any sickness agreement that mixes up sickness capability and disciplinary procedures and measures should be challenged. That the union will not tolerate staff being disciplined for genuine sickness and that procedures should be agreed that only use sickness capability procedures unless occupational health report that there is no underlying cause for someone’s continued absence from work.
3) That as a union we are against the new practice of incorporating disciplinary procedure into sickness procedures and using trigger points, rather than occupational health, to indicate to a manager whether someone should be counselled under informal disciplinary procedure for their sickness, or disciplined.
4) That as a union we are against the attempt by employers to shorten the timescales for employees who are on a redeployment list before they terminate their contracts on capability.
5) That all procedures should be compliant with the responsibility of the employer to meet the needs of those with recognised disabilities.