Work-related absence

Occupational sick pay arrangements may provide parallel or separate sick pay for absence due to a work-related cause. The TUC says: “Workers should not be made ill or injured while at work, however if they are, it is important they are given support to ensure that they make a full and early recovery. A good policy of managing sickness absence can help this”. Workplace injuries or illnesses should also be disregarded, or at the very least separately recorded, when employers are assessing overall or individual absence patterns.

At chemical manufacturer BASF, the attendance management policy states that where absence follows an accident at work overall sick pay entitlement will not normally be affected (unless the worker has been found to be negligent in which case they may be given a formal warning and paid in accordance with normal sick pay): Full pay will be made for the first 23 shifts of absence (for shift workers) after which pay would be at the basic rate.

It is important to have a clear policy on this issue so that employees do not lose out financially. The HSE points out that in 2011-12 there were an estimated 1.1 million working people suffering from a work-related illness, with around 450,000 new cases of occupational related ill health, and a further estimated 12,000 deaths each year caused by past exposures to harmful substances at work.

Traditionally, health issues in the workplace are harder to tackle than safety issues because cause and effect are often not clearly linked, while many serious occupational diseases have a long period of “latency” between exposure and development. Where a link is established or accepted, employees may seek compensation through the civil courts, although the number of claims of this kind has fallen sharply, according to the TUC-backed Hazards campaign.