Ill health retirement

Bydand said:

kalli said:

Hi, Thank you so much for your advice. I am employed by the civil service where the maximum career break is 5 years unpaid. I started off taking a 3 year career break but I haven't been fit to resume employment by the end of each break and I won't resign so they kept extending the career break due to special circumstances. I enquired about ill health retirement around 1.5 years ago and I got my decision last Thursday. 

I'm sure I read that OHS doctors aren't supposed to make decisions based on treatments that currently dont exist but may or may not become available in the future for chronic illness. 

Hi again and thank you for supplying some more facts, even though I am still a bit baffled.

I can’t think of a single example other than your own where the employer extends the career break as a way to keep you away from the workplace due to , in their eyes being unfit for your role. That makes no sense and would I’m guessing not be the norm…at all.

ref not resigning after each break period, I would have thought the employer would have started the referral process with OH anyway and you would have had no choice but to participate as in your own words you weren’t fit enough to resume employment. I am struggling to believe that an employer would just keep giving you career breaks when there is no need too. There is no gain for you or for them when everything can be dealt with by way of absence management policy , OH referrals and IHR process if applicable.

having worked for the civil service for 25 years I know that they will not intentionally let someone just keep hanging around on the fringes when they have processes they could use to force your resignation or medical discharge.

From your point of view I also don’t know what you got out of having career breaks continually, surely if you genuinely feel that you cannot maintain employment then other channels for leaving work within the HR remit would be better for all concerned.

As for OHS having a view on matters and determining an outcome for an IHR application, the schemes chief medical Officer can only go by what is current medical advice and is unlikely to be swayed by future ifs or maybes. They will only go by the evidence presented to them now. If successful in IHR then it is a huge financial burden on an employer to maintain payments into a pension fund for an employee who is no longer employed by them, so you can see that things to a certain degree have to be very much black and white so they are fair to everyone. I think you are unlucky in that some of youre conditions are not very well understood and are open to debate…..the problem is evidencing your side of things to the descriptors as I mentioned. It is also highly unlikely that your application would be accepted if you have not had a recorded period of sick absence , usually over years, OH referrals , workplace adjustments etc….That is what builds up the picture the chief medical Officer needs, along with medical reports evidencing the condition and the struggles you likely face.

My advice still stands ref appeal. Have a conversation with GP, consultant or specialists and explain the descriptors the pension scheme measures by….ask that any letter does not use words like possible, likely , maybe etc that can be viewed wrongly.

Again feel free to ask other questions

Bydand said:

kalli said:

Bydand said:

kalli said:

Hi, Thank you so much for your advice. I am employed by the civil service where the maximum career break is 5 years unpaid. I started off taking a 3 year career break but I haven't been fit to resume employment by the end of each break and I won't resign so they kept extending the career break due to special circumstances. I enquired about ill health retirement around 1.5 years ago and I got my decision last Thursday. 

I'm sure I read that OHS doctors aren't supposed to make decisions based on treatments that currently dont exist but may or may not become available in the future for chronic illness. 

Hi again and thank you for supplying some more facts, even though I am still a bit baffled.

I can’t think of a single example other than your own where the employer extends the career break as a way to keep you away from the workplace due to , in their eyes being unfit for your role. That makes no sense and would I’m guessing not be the norm…at all.

ref not resigning after each break period, I would have thought the employer would have started the referral process with OH anyway and you would have had no choice but to participate as in your own words you weren’t fit enough to resume employment. I am struggling to believe that an employer would just keep giving you career breaks when there is no need too. There is no gain for you or for them when everything can be dealt with by way of absence management policy , OH referrals and IHR process if applicable.

having worked for the civil service for 25 years I know that they will not intentionally let someone just keep hanging around on the fringes when they have processes they could use to force your resignation or medical discharge.

From your point of view I also don’t know what you got out of having career breaks continually, surely if you genuinely feel that you cannot maintain employment then other channels for leaving work within the HR remit would be better for all concerned.

As for OHS having a view on matters and determining an outcome for an IHR application, the schemes chief medical Officer can only go by what is current medical advice and is unlikely to be swayed by future ifs or maybes. They will only go by the evidence presented to them now. If successful in IHR then it is a huge financial burden on an employer to maintain payments into a pension fund for an employee who is no longer employed by them, so you can see that things to a certain degree have to be very much black and white so they are fair to everyone. I think you are unlucky in that some of youre conditions are not very well understood and are open to debate…..the problem is evidencing your side of things to the descriptors as I mentioned. It is also highly unlikely that your application would be accepted if you have not had a recorded period of sick absence , usually over years, OH referrals , workplace adjustments etc….That is what builds up the picture the chief medical Officer needs, along with medical reports evidencing the condition and the struggles you likely face.

My advice still stands ref appeal. Have a conversation with GP, consultant or specialists and explain the descriptors the pension scheme measures by….ask that any letter does not use words like possible, likely , maybe etc that can be viewed wrongly.

Again feel free to ask other questions

Hi, 

Thank you again for your advice I'm definitely going to follow it and speak to my gp again. All my specialists have discharged me saying no more treatment can be offered. 

Yes I think my case is probably unique, I don't know why they just kept extending. They finally said we wont extend it again so i asked if i would be eligible for ill health retirement. I was off on long-term sick multiple times before my career break but I hadn't been officially diagnosed with anything, it took years to be diagnosed with fibro. I initially applied for 3 years as I had 2 young kids and all this was going on. I thought I could get myself "sorted" then come back but that wasn't what happened, my health kept deteriorating. I've worked for NICS since I was 17. 

I forgot to mention before the OHS doctor has stated I'm clearly unfit for work at present so I've asked welfare what does this mean for me if/when the appeal is denied. They haven't got back to me yet.

Sorry, I probably come across as a bit sceptical but not my intention, just a unique situation I have never heard of before….and a complicated one.

it is unfortunate that your specialists have discharged you but shouldn’t stop you from getting a letter from them explaining the condition, symptoms and likely prognosis and their involvement in your care.

Perhaps look at finding a Fibro specialist independent of the nhs etc…you may have to pay for any help or advice but it would be a small price to pay perhaps. A specialist in any medical field giving a professional opinion is hard to argue against.

I am a bit sceptical about GPs giving evidence to anyone as generally all they can write is extracts from what’s on their system from the various people involved in your care, most of the time other than perhaps referring you to a specialist they generally have very little contact with you other than you initially going to see them. If it was me, I would offer to pay to have a detailed report from them with mindfulness of the pension schemes descriptors…it might be beneficial to give them a copy of these descriptors so they can refer to them specifically when writing any report…..also ask that you see the report first before it is sent anywhere. Dont leave it to chance that they will write the report you need, you may have to steer them in the right direction……I had a very frank discussion with my consultant and told her that I wasn’t asking for them to be dishonest or too sugar coat any report but I would appreciate that they keep in mind that how they write the report and the words and phrases used can have a negative impact despite no harm intended

in any appeal against a medical decision you need to have your own evidence that counters what the pensions chief medical Officer says. You don’t have to prove anything with 100% certainty, but you need to evidence likelihood and probability and permanence….example of parts of a report might look like this…it is highly likely and indeed probable that mr x condition of y will not improve further and that all reasonable treatments have been exhausted. It is likely that Mr x will continue to suffer from the effects of his illness as highlighted in this report and that his symptoms will not get significantly better and in all probability will be permanent……..something along these lines but more detailed from a professional in Fibro would be difficult to ignore or dispute……What you have going on your side is that the chief medical Officer who makes the decision on your application may not be a specialist in Fibro but just has a very basic understanding of the condition……you need the most secure evidence you can find in order to prove your point to the appeal board.

not an expert by any means but having thoroughly looked into everything to do with IHR before I applied the above will hopefully be helpful.