UK medical firm fines sick staff to force them to work: Report
One of Britain’s biggest providers of care workers for medical facilities has been fining staff who call in sick, raising concerns that the firm's employees are being forced to turn up for shifts when they are not fit for work, UK media have reported.
The Guardian newspaper said in a report on Monday that Newcross Healthcare Solutions has been fining staff who phone in sick for 50 pounds.
The report said the company, which employs 7,000 staff across 63 branches providing temporary nurses and care workers for hospitals and residential and nursing homes, was accused of risking spreading illnesses from the sick staff to vulnerable patients.
The revelations come amid growing public dissatisfaction about the quality and sustainability of medical care services in Britain, a country that has long boasted of its integrated health system.
Many patients have been forced to wait weeks to receive treatment from the National Health Service (NHS), as hospitals and clinics face severe under-staffing.
The Guardian said that Newcross had failed to pay to employees who canceled their shifts because of illness without 24 hours’ notice or had docked their wages.
The report cited employees saying that when they contacted the firm to report a car crash on the way to a shift, which resulted in serious injuries, people at the agency just laughed on the phone.
“They laughed on the phone, then told me: ‘Thank you for losing us a client,’ and went on to charge me £50. I was disgusted,” said the unidentified employee who works in south-west England and sustained injuries to his spine in the car crash.
Others said they had money docked from their pay even after obtaining a doctor’s note on having legitimate health issues.
The NHS has also been accused of lowering service qualities by forcing the staff to long shifts.
Estimates say the organization has more than 100,000 empty positions, mainly due to recurrent cuts to its budget and also the migration of foreign staff who have left Britain ahead of the country’s withdrawal from the EU in March.
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