What can an employer do about an employee who is taking odd days off and claiming them as sick days (unpaid) but is believed (via a colleague) to not be really sick? Can employer insist on sick notes/doctors visit etc? And if it appears that the employee is lying about this - is it a low-level disciplinary matter?

Please could you advise whether someone is legally entitled to time off work for a hospital appointment when they are working full time.

I have a member of staff who is employed for 16 hours per week (and paid monthly at that rate).

She works 7 hours per day on Monday and Tuesday and 'banks' the rest for out of hours meetings and holiday cover for her job share partner.

When she has a day off for sickness or annual leave she maintains that she should count that as an 8 hour day. I'm not sure about that. she is currently on one month's sick leave and I am inclined to say for long term sickness 8 hours is OK as she cannot do any of her hours. Your views please?

We are considering offering an intership to carry out a short-term (6-8 weeks) piece of research. We'd like to give the intern a daily payment for each day that they're with us.

Could you please advise on whether:

- we need to provide a written contract
- the payment would be subject to income tax and NI deductions
- whether the intern would be eligible for statutory sick pay if unable to attend through illness
- whether the intern would be eligible for paid holiday.

Thanks

We have an employee who is signed off sick until mid-February. She has been with our organisation for some time and has contractual entitlement to 10 weeks’ sick pay at full rate and a further 10 weeks at half pay. She will be starting the period of half pay one week before she is due to return to work (unless she is signed off for a further period).

A colleague who is involved in finalising a personnel budget has asked whether, instead of being paid at half-pay, she could elect to take annual leave during this period, which would presumably be paid at the full rate.

Am I right in thinking that an employee can’t take annual leave if signed off sick? My understanding is that, if she has annual leave pending, she would need to take it after her return to work or be paid for it if she decides to leave. Is that correct?

There’s nothing in her contract or terms and conditions that say anything different. If she is still off sick at the point when her contractual sickpay comes to an end (i.e. at the end of the 10-week period of half pay), she will be on nil pay until/unless she returns to work. I assume that this is the point at which she could take any remaining annual leave. Would be grateful for your advice.

I have an employee who works part time - 3 days a week - who has been ill since 9th Jan but has come in for a few half days early on but has now been off for 4 weeks consistently (12 working days).
What is my position in terms of putting her onto sick pay?
There is nothing in her contract about sick pay and I have been paying her full wage.