Equal Rights for Employee’s (Discriminating against People with Serious Illness and Diseases)

Equal rights for employee’s is based upon employee’s who are working for employers who do not operate an Occupational Sickness Scheme and only work within the United Kingdom Statutory Sick Pay Scheme.

What SSP means is that the employee’s sick absence must fit within the laid down qualifying criteria to qualify and if they do not fit into the laid down criteria then they have no redress for pay during the period that they are off.

It is also aimed at equalising the legislation for entitlement to time off with pay for certain events in the employee’s life as the current legislation seems to discriminate against employee’s diagnosed with life threatening illnesses such as Cancer.

The reason the current legislation seems to be discriminatory against this class of employee is for the following reasons:

• No right to time off with pay for Doctors appointment, hospital appointments or treatment sessions. (This will be explained by the extracts below why it could be found to be discriminatory)
• A cancer patients time away from work normally consists of a day here and half day there which is not covered by SSP as this does not fit into the qualifying criteria as laid down.

When an employee is diagnosed with a life threatening Illness or disease they go through the following emotions, Shock, Anger, Stress, Anxiety and many others.

Part II To follow