Sick Pay

[Elle]

Unfortunately my husband is going to be on long term sick from Royal Mail after 35yrs service and his illness has been caused by Royal mail. My concern is that he will go onto half pay in July and we just cannot afford it. The union rep has said HR will send a form to apply to DSS to make up the pay when they warn about going onto half pay.

Does anyone have any experience of this and how DSS assess each case? Thank you

[POSTMAN]

It's employment support allowance ,contact the job centre people. 0845 6088770

When your SSP expires you should receive from HR an SSP1 form for completion and return to the jobcentreplus from then on your sick notes would go to them also sending a copy to his line manager.

Also if you get housing/council tax benefit that can be adjusted as well,or a possible new claim could be made if not already on it.
Also if you get tax credits they can be adjusted as well as his 'year end' earnings will be down.

And was it an accident on duty,if it was and it's registered with the DWP as an industrial injury he would be entitled to a whole year of sick pay.

[Elle]

Hello Postman,

Thank you for the advice, initially it was an accident at work facet joint and my husband had to insist that the ERICA was not only filled in but submitted, his line manager said because they believed it to be an incident it did not need submitting! It was submitted and DWP? sent a letter to say they deemed it an accident and that we could claim.

However my husband followed all procedures physio, ATOS and tried hard to return to his full duty giving solutions to his line managers which would enable him to do so. He works on collections, The lack of support and pressure for my husband to return to full duties and the line managers ignoring ATOS' advice led to my husband becoming very stressed having an acute psychotic episode and being sectioned under the mental health act.

I am recieving support the the area union rep as grievence procedures are at stage two. I am a full time teacher so we have no income support of any kind, infact due to raise in my pension contribution April 12 I actually come out with less pay!

It is so sad my husband wanted to but in 50yrs service and in reality I don't think he will be returning to work, and the drs have said the cause was due to stress at work. It is all a bit messy and of course with this being a public site I will not go into depth.

[Elle]

Well I have just discovered that half pay wages starts the day after you have had 6months off sick in any 12 month period, wish I had been informed before. A letter explaining form for SSP cme a couple of weeks ago saying the pay would go down from 14th August but apparently thats something different!

So cross and angry and feel totally let down by Royal mail, grievance is still at stage two the investigating manager still has two more employees to interview but has gone on holiday for three weeks!

[POSTMAN]

Will move this to the union room forum.