Posted By Mick154 Would appreciate you views on the following, this is a real issue for my friend Come back to work last week after a holiday touring on his motor bike. Come back with runny nose and eyes normal hay fever symptoms put normal for him after a week on his bike. During the next two days he developed a bit of a sore throat, is pals at work started banter and joking about swine flu, but as the day went on his throat became worse so bing in an engineering plant where there are fumes he put on a face mask. This escalated the banter. Later he played up to this making choking, coughing noises etc and acting like a pig with flu The next morning the safety manager sent for him to his office and told him that he had been on the NHS web site and found that the symptoms he has was of swine flu, gave him contact number and registration number and sent him home. He contact the number given and was instructed to get the medication. On Monday the doctor visited him and told him he had not got or had swine flu but a sore throat told him to finish the self certification week at home and rest as the medication he had taken makes you a bit drowsy and as he works with machinery this would be the best. Then Tuesday morning he received a letter from the Safety Manager stating he was being given a 12 month written warning for his behaviour (acting out and making others uncomfortable in is company) and not following government advise on swine flu There was no disciplinary hearing, just the letter.

Posted By Coshh Assessor Does the company disciplinary policy enable the safety manager to send such a letter?

Posted By Tabs This is clearly an HR issue, not H&S - but here is my unqualified two penneth: Your friend appears to have reacted to the position his colleagues placed him in. Their "banter" was inappropriate and obviously led directly to his overacting. It would be a strange company that had a policy against coughing and imitating a pig. If they do have such policies, they are probably going to be adjudged as unfair anyhow. If your friend was asked to explain his symptoms and recent history, then any instruction to stay away from work would be at the employer's risk. His subsequent instruction by his doctor is lawful. I would suggest the friend writes to the company raising a concern - perhaps even a complaint. Should he also expect a letter of retraction and apology? I would hope so.

Posted By Phil Rose I may be being slightly cynical, but I wonder if we are getting the full story here? On the face of it, it certainly doesn't appear if the proper procedures have been followed. Agree, that it is strange that the health and safety manager should send out a disciplinary letter unless he was the persons line manager. I am not convinced that the manager needs reporting to IOSH on the basis of the information that we have.

Posted By DougB What Medical training or for that matter Health and Safety Training has this manager? (Too often there are people with titles but not much else) -- Assuming the manager is qualified?! he/she should recognise that only qualified medical practitioners can make a clinical diagnosis of ill health. I hope he has a good (qualified) lawyer !

Posted By martinw Mick to me 3 is the overriding point here and I imagine that the person in charge of HR has a pair of hands round the safety manager's neck as we speak. The company I used to work for dismissed a manager for misconduct. Because the disciplinary procedure was not followed exactly, the person won the appeal and more than three grand and got their job back. Not saying that this will happen here, obviously, but not having any disciplinary meeting or sending a letter outlining the rationale for the proceedings are basic mistakes. It may sound obvious, but make sure before you both go into the meeting that you know exactly what you want out of it. I imagine your mate wants the warning to be removed from his record. This may be something that the HR manager is more than happy to do bearing in mind how it came about in the first place. Not making ANY excuses but if the relevant manager has not had the correct training to do their job properly then it is maybe more the company's fault than the person's. What might come out of the meeting if relevant may be extra training for this manager, and if so, it may benefit the whole company. Good luck to your mate and to you Martin

Posted By Coshh Assessor Glad to hear it, Mick.