Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice and opinions on dealing with employee sickness. Yesterday, I was off site and we had an employee who felt dizzy and said she felt like she was going to pass out.

She was seen by a first aider. The employee said she wanted to go home as she felt too unwell to work.

She left site and walked about 25 minutes to the buss-stop. The question is, given the nature of her illness, while its perhaps good practice to offer to take an employee with these symptoms home, how far does the employers duty of care go? I.e if she passed out and was seriously injured on the way to the bus stop or even worse, if she was a driver and had an accident, would there be any comeback on us as her employer for allowing her to go alone?

Thanks in advance.

Assuming this was not work-related, this is an example of where the employer's legal duty ends but a moral duty may well still exist and perhaps illustrates the difference between a socially responsible employer and one who is less so.

Maybe your management should consider the local public reaction to news that an ill worker was left to fend for themselves and then became worse or died when compared to the cost of a taxi.

Of course, if the illness was work-related then my scenario becomes more complex and fraught with significant legal implications.

I tend to agree with David, but I would go even further. There are any number of reasons why the employee may have felt unwell, work related, or not. Regardless, an employer has a common law Duty of Care for an employee although it is a moot point how far that DoC extends. I would say in the situation described there is at least a moral obligation to ensure the employee gets home safely. 

In similar circumstances I have requested a member of staff to accompany the unwell person to their home. If, for some reason this is not possible, then at the vey least to order them a taxi to take them home and if possible to check later they are okay.  

If you are really concerned about the legal aspects, I would say someone becoming ill whilst at work is an entirely forseeable event.  The fact you do not have a policy or procedure for dealing with it is a failure of your management system.

To send someone on a 25 minute walk to a bus stop when they were not well enough to work is clearly not acceptable.  Would have been better to keep them at work in a safe place (sat in an office) until they either recovered or a safe way of getting them home could be arranged.

Originally Posted by: andybz

If you are really concerned about the legal aspects, I would say someone becoming ill whilst at work is an entirely forseeable event.  The fact you do not have a policy or procedure for dealing with it is a failure of your management system.

To send someone on a 25 minute walk to a bus stop when they were not well enough to work is clearly not acceptable.  Would have been better to keep them at work in a safe place (sat in an office) until they either recovered or a safe way of getting them home could be arranged.

Really?  I've worked in many, many places.  Some had great management systems, some not so good.  But I've never come across a policy or procedure to cover the off chance that someone might have to go home from work not feeling well.

I am a bit surprised that people feel that someone becoming ill at work is not a "forseeable event" or only an "off chance."  The first and safety regulations specifically cover someone who is "injured or taken ill at work."

I thought the normal policy was that a first aider will stay with the person until they recover fully or are handed over to a medical person.  Whether you write that down is another issue.

I wouldn't have a written policy for this - one needs to just make the sensible decision at the time and talk to the employee.  A 25 minute walk to the bus stop and then, presumably, a bus journey and a walk at the other end is really quite hostile to someone taken ill at work.  I would just regard this as a standard duty of care to an employee to ensure they get home safely and mostly an HR function.

Agreed that it would come under a general duty of care

I'm still of the opinion that not having a policy or procedure for it is NOT a management system failure.  Most decent managers would manage it as it happens, as part of their normal work.

whilst the first aider's assessment is important, i would be inclined to feel it may be worth taking to drop in centre or further medical assistance, 

with dizziness, you could be looking at underlying issues of diabetes, tia/stroke, blood pressure, epilepsy, and further investigation as to a root cause should be understood, and as such, i personally would want to know whats actually wrong with them. 

we had a "hospital policy" where we insisted if someone went to hospital, they rang their next of kin to tell them what had happened etc to ensure communication. we would drive individual to hospital and wait with them to be seen, so could get some sort of update as to what was going on with occ health follow up after. 

a number of people used to have feeling unwell, want to go home which potentially were used to mask other issues 

taking to hospital and being with them to be seen ensured the people were actually examined for what they complained of and got some sort of action as to what was wrong.

obviously bit different to bit of headache and took some paracetamol, but shows care for the person and taking issue seriously.

my dad died of a stroke, and as such, fainting episodes are part of it, so perhaps worth looking at with medical resources to allow better management of issue, especially if had multiple ones, or if driver (think of glasgow issue), or ask why not driver - medically unfit?