Currently, only workers in Care Quality Commission regulated care homes are subject to mandatory vaccination, with the remaining workers in the health and social care sector as a whole joining them from 1 April 2022. However, the Government has now amended its position on mandatory vaccination after considering the increased vaccination numbers and the reduced […]

A pregnant woman has succeeded in persuading an Employment Tribunal (ET) that she was discriminated against when a senior manager asked what her plans were whilst nodding towards her stomach. Ms Duffy was a PA at Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust in North London. In 2019 she was told the Trust would […]

On 14 December 2021, Parliament approved draft regulations (the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) (No. 2) Regulations 2022) making it compulsory for all front-line workers providing services regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to have had a full course of an authorised COVID-19 vaccine. This follows similar regulations enacted […]

In December 2021, the Government amended the self-isolation rules to the effect that a person who is identified as a ‘close contact’ of somebody who has tested positive with COVID-19 does not have to self-isolate if they are fully vaccinated. However, the rules did not change for those who are not fully vaccinated (who still […]

In response to the Omicron variant of COVID-19 currently proliferating across the nation, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, has announced the revival of the Statutory Sick Pay Rebate scheme, which came to an end on 30 September 2021. Usually, the cost of Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) (currently £96.35 per week), is covered by […]

Last year, a woman (who remains anonymous) brought an Employment Tribunal (ET) claim for discrimination on the grounds of philosophical belief against her employer. This was in response to the employer withholding her wages when she refused to return to work in July because she feared she would catch COVID-19 and pass it to her […]

Last week, in response to what he described as an “Omicron Emergency”, the Prime Minister announced a substantial increase to the Covid-19 booster programme target, which now aims to offer a booster to all eligible adults by the end of the year. In an attempt to achieve this ambitious objective, GPs’ surgeries have once again […]

Employers usually reserve the contractual right to deduct sums from their employees’ wages in circumstances where a deduction from salary is necessary. Examples of necessary deductions include those for employee pension contributions, in relation to salary sacrifice schemes (e.g. cars, childcare etc), in respect of overpayments and for tools and uniforms that are not provided […]

With the new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, spreading throughout the UK, Boris Johnson has decided that now is the time to move to ‘Plan B’ to try and slow the infection rate in the hope that NHS will not become overwhelmed at its busiest time of the year. The new restrictions announced are as follows: From […]

Due to the unprecedented economic impact the 2020/21 lockdowns had on UK business, many were concerned that, once life returned to normal, employers up and down the country would be forced to make swathes of redundancies. Indeed, it generally seemed to be accepted in the media that once furlough ended for good at the end […]

The UK Government has introduced new regulations following the discovery of the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, which has been labelled as a ‘variant of concern’. The new regulations, which came into force at 4.00am on 30 November 2021, have made face coverings mandatory on all public transport and in shops, with the hope that this […]

A long-established but, up until a couple of years ago, relatively rarely used tactic for achieving variations to employee terms and conditions is that of ‘fire and rehire’. This is where an employer will dismiss an employee and then offer to rehire them on new, usually less favourable, terms. Alternatively, an employer may threaten to […]