Agency work with a disability / hospital appts

SViking

Hi

Whats anyones experiences as agency worker with disabilities ?

I work through an agency and umbrella company, getting placed into organisations for periods of time.

I agred to return to a previous placement recently following a major surgery. I warned the placement that I was on 18 month recovery but my doc agreed 20 hours a week for 1 month as a start. Also I was in middle of a part time course when offered the work which I explained to them about however I suspected the placement wanted me to drop this to do more work. I started in 1st September.

Unfortunately I was taken into critical care for 3 days on Sunday night due to invasive candidiasis. It had escalated rapidly and I was very sick, having body spasms, in severe pain, severely hallucinating and delirious with BP of 200. The best I could manage was email my agency a line or two to say I was in hospital as my line manager at the placement was on holiday, I was in no fit state for anything else, I definitely had impaired capacity. The agency dealt with it appropriately and told the placement what had happened and she'd be speaking with me asap and come back to them.

I spoke with agency today to say feeling loads better due to treatment and confident I could increase hours to 30 from return on Monday for 2 weeks, then to 37.

The placement line manager had emailed me seperately and I replied to confirm the above but I needed to take care not to overdo it. I explained I needed to sort a few things at home and if he wanted to speak could he please send a message to my mobile number for when he was free. He ignored that and emailed me an essay, complaining Id not contacted them directly, basically saying that I'd left the team understaffed, they didnt think I was fit to work, and sent a teams meeting invite for 10 mins time. I would not be allowed to claim time for days where I've had hospital appointments even if its been in my lunch break!! Of course I didnt see this horrid email so I didnt reply.

Im really mad, since I returned to the placement not 1 person had checked in on me to see how I was getting in.

Are agency workers not allowed to have disabilities, critical health emergencies and to work around hospital appointments ?? Had they bothered to check in in me I could have told them what/when the appointments are ... it was never an issue previously.

but the fact is they cant keep staff and now placing blame on me

Sorry for the long post. I came out of critical care to this and now Im stressed and cant sleep

Mary_Scope

Hi @SViking and a warm welcome to the community from me!

Thank you for sharing your experience, it sounds very stressful and difficult and I’m sorry you’ve had to go through that!

You do have the right to fair treatment and reasonable adjustments, especially after a critical health emergency so it's not great that your placement responded with criticism rather than care.

Have you spoken to anybody about this? If not, it may also be worth seeking advice from ACAS especially if you feel like they have treated you unfairly!