Content area
Full Text
Employment lawyer Laurie Anstis looks at what steps an employer should take when setting up a phased return to work for a previously ill employee.
A phased return to work will not be suitable in every situation. The premise of a phased return is that the employee is well enough to carry out some work and is likely, given time, to recover sufficiently to return to his or her previous role (or previous role with some adaptations).
Where the employee is not capable of any work, the question of a phased return will not arise. The Employment Appeal Tribunal held in Salford NHS Primary Care Trust v Smith that there is no obligation for an employer to offer an employee work purely as a form of therapeutic rehabilitation.
A phased return to work should be based on medical advice, either in the form of a fit note from the employees GP or in a medical or OH report commissioned by the employer. In the case of a fit note, in addition to ticking the "phased return to work" box the GP is required by the official guidance, Getting the most out of thefit note, to complete the note with details of what the employee is or is not capable of doing.
Where the employer commissions its own report, it should make it clear to the relevant medical professional that where they are of the opinion that a phased return to work would be helpful, he or she should give the employer as much detail as possible about how the phased return to work should be set up and managed.
Meeting the employee
If a medical professional advises that a phased return to work may be suitable, the employer should discuss a phased return with the employee - this is usually best done face to face.
The employer should telephone the employee to arrange the meeting, and confirm the meeting arrangements in a letter or email.
Some employees might find it difficult to come to the workplace to do this because of, for example, physical difficulties with travel or as a result of conditions of stress or anxiety that the employee associates with the workplace.
Therefore, the employer should be prepared to consider a visit...