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Retention of disabled staff toolkit Chapter 5

Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) and return to work processes

What you will learn in this chapter

  • The barriers disabled people experience with SSP and return to work processes
  • Actions you can take to address those barriers

 

Traditional absence triggers can disadvantage disabled employees, especially those with fluctuating conditions.

47% of disabled people agreed that Scope’s recommendations to government on improving SSP would have helped them stay in work.

Employers can implement their own actions to support disabled employees remain in work.

Recommended actions

Create a disability leave policy

Disability leave is different from sick leave. It’s the time needed for things directly related to disability.

An employee can use disability leave at their discretion for any reason connected to an impairment or condition. The policy would give disabled staff a fixed number of absence days to do this.

This means disabled staff can take time off work to:

  • attend a medical appointment
  • recover from a disability related medical problem
  • manage a reoccurring condition

This leave should be recorded separately to annual leave or sickness absence.

Partner with us

We believe partnerships can help us build a more inclusive and accessible society. One where disabled people experience equality and fairness.

To do this, we partner with organisations to work on larger strategic goals together. For wider social change. For their customers. For their clients. For their employees.

Partner with Scope