Sickness and Ill Health Q&As

The employer has to show that a fair dismissal procedure was followed before dismissing an employee whose health prevents them from attending work or from doing their job. For more details please see our Briefing Note How your employer should handle sickness and ill health absences.

Possibly; much depends on the medical reasons and how long you have been away from work. Your employers should discuss with you the changes that you need to be made and the practical consequences of them. Your employer should try and accommodate changes if it means you can continue at or return to work. 

If you are a disabled employee your employer has a statutory obligation to consider what if any reasonable adjustments it should make to your working arrangements to let you remain or return to work. 

Your employment may be allowed to take into account the cost of making the change; if the cost is arguably too expensive, this may justify your employer from making the change.

Yes. We specialise in representing employees in the employment tribunal. We have an impressive track record of bringing claims for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination linked to ill health or injury. 

For more details please see our Employment Tribunal Claims pages. 

It depends. If you sign the settlement agreement this creates a legally binding agreement that prevents you from starting or continuing with any tribunal or court claim against your employer. Before signing you need to be independently and legally advised about the merits and value of the offer. 

Settlement agreements are useful when an employee has been away from work on sick leave. For business reasons, an employer may make an offer to pay compensation in return for the employment coming to an end. In many cases this is a satisfactory way of dealing with an employee’s absence on sick leave, especially if long-term. 

Your employer may well also want to avoid the risk of eventually ending up in the employment tribunal justifying the fairness of its decision to dismiss you. 

The employment law solicitors at Quantrills specialise in advising employees about the merits of an offer to leave employment on agreed terms and your options to help you decide if the offer is one you should accept. 

Full details about how we can help you with your settlement agreement are at Settlement Agreements.