Going off sick due to work stress?

[oliviarose]

I am considering going off sick due to work stress. I am a HCSW at our local hospital, I have been back at work since sept from mat leave. I successfully reduced my hours from 35 to 22.5 hours. I asked for set days, but this was refused due to work load fluctuating! There are other staff on our unit which have set days or hours. HR have told me to try and sort it out with my manager, but she is the most unapproachable person you will meet. My ds is constantly poorly since he has been at nursery, we are off to see a paed today! We only know what we are working a week, maybe two weeks in advance. I am hopefully gonna be moving departments soon, but thus process is going so slow.

I am really struggling to cope with working different days/hours each week. Struggling with childcare and ds always being poorly.

Are there good grounds for sickness on my part?

Thanks in advance.

 

[davidjoemum]

i think thats ok to go off sick from reasons you wrote here.go to your GP and have a chat.
i put myself off sick from stress at work but I was pregnant the reason was unapproachable manager which constantly was on my back and making me work overtime
and not only me but two other pregnant ladies in my department (i work for NHS)my manager is lesbian lady(I know many of lesbians and they all lovely)but this one was quite b**ch and for some reasons she hated preggos.
when i went to talk to her and tell her that Im pregnant she told me that there are options IYKWIM????
if you going to change department soon why struggle?

 

[oliviarose]

i think thats ok to go off sick from reasons you wrote here.go to your GP and have a chat.
i put myself off sick from stress at work but I was pregnant the reason was unapproachable manager which constantly was on my back and making me work overtime
and not only me but two other pregnant ladies in my department (i work for NHS)my manager is lesbian lady(I know many of lesbians and they all lovely)but this one was quite b**ch and for some reasons she hated preggos.
when i went to talk to her and tell her that Im pregnant she told me that there are options IYKWIM????
if you going to change department soon why struggle?

Thank you for the quick reply How awful that you had to deal with that whilst you were pregnant. My manager isn't like yours was, but she is so unapproachable and has no people skills what so ever. She will do nothing to try and help you. She talks to you like you are a child and shouts at you like you're on sometimes. I get scared when I know I have got to speak to her and I shouldn't feel like that.

That is what I am thinking with regards to moving departments. But it still doesn't seem real to me and in my head I am still unsure that it is gonna happen, silly I know. And I think I am gonna be stuck on my department.
We have just had a new hospital built and we could request where we wanted to work (we had three options). We then had to wait to get the letter of where we would be going. I put childrens department as my first choice and my current department as my second choice. I got offered one of the childrens wards (this was back in Nov). Since then all I have had is the form for my CRB, which I am waiting to be processed. So I still don't have a start date

 

[frantastic20]

I would say, without wishing to sound harsh, that you don't plan whether you're going off sick or not. You're either too sick to work, or you're not. Whether it's stress, flu, depression, or a broken leg, only you and your GP (bearing in mind they will obviously go on what you tell them) know whether you're well enough to be at work.

I hope you get your move soon though. The CRB checks do take a while but that sounds very long!

 

[oliviarose]

I would say, without wishing to sound harsh, that you don't plan whether you're going off sick or not. You're either too sick to work, or you're not. Whether it's stress, flu, depression, or a broken leg, only you and your GP (bearing in mind they will obviously go on what you tell them) know whether you're well enough to be at work.

I hope you get your move soon though. The CRB checks do take a while but that sounds very long!

Thank you for your reply, certainly not harsh we all have opinions.

Totally agree with you in regards to we shouldn't plan these things. I just don't know how much longer I can deal with an awful manager, only knowing what I am working one week in advance (such a struggle to arrange childcare), it is affecting me a lot, it is playing on my mind, affecting my sleep. Oh is the main earner, working long hours, so childcare and sorting it out is left down me it is affecting me so much at the moment

 

[frantastic20]

Well it definitely sounds like it is causing you stress. I would recommend going back to HR with a list of the problems and explain that it’s causing you stress and affecting you in this way.

I suspect that using the word itself should be enough to get them to sit up and take notice, it's not the kind of thing an employer can ignore. And you've already done as they asked and approached your manager.

Fingers crossed it gets sorted out!