The Department of Health and Social Care has announced changes to the way COVID-19-related sickness absence and self-isolation will be managed for NHS staff in England.
From 7 July, the staff terms and conditions section of the COVID-19 workforce guidance will be withdrawn, meaning the withdrawal from this date of:
- COVID-19 sick pay for new episodes of COVID-19 sickness.
- Access to COVID-19 special leave for the purposes of self-isolation.
Our response to the changes is:
“It’s incredibly unfair that the government would withdraw NHS sick pay support for new episodes of COVID sickness. This will be a real blow for the hard-working NHS staff in England. Many of them have been on the frontline treating people throughout the Covid pandemic and have put themselves at risk from the virus.
“With a challenging autumn/winter to come, many NHS staff continue to suffer from the effects of COVID, but the government still don’t even recognise Long Covid as an occupational disease. We know from our recent rehabilitation workforce survey that NHS workers, including many occupational therapists and are dealing with the impact of COVID and Long Covid on a huge scale. The government should be supporting them now, not removing their sick pay. We will be working with AHP colleagues and others to challenge this.”