Redundancy pending retirement

I can say that I agree with Carole. It's only because I was thinking along the lines of her last sentence that prevented me from posting anything on this!

I agree with janet. You can terminate her contract for medical incapacity however she should then be automatically entitled to be put into the companies medical retirement scheme which should have set criteria that an employee will have to meet.

In normal circumstances an employee would be sent for a medical examination and discussion in order to clarify that this criteria has been met on behalf of the pension scheme. If the employee is literally too ill then I am sure that all her medical notes or those necessary could be sent in order to satisfy whoever needs to see them.

For a company to actively try to "dismiss" an employee for medical reasons without going through the proper process would be discrimination. To then try to prevent them from applying for something they have every right to would cost them a whole lot more than her pension payments if she took them to court!! Pat I am controlling my urge to write what I really think of your company for even contemplating this - its incredibly disgusting!

No, it is not legal. What your head office call "a legitimate business imperative" the rest of us call disability discrimination! Therefore it is not fair either.

I have partial HR responsibility for a small-ish subsidiary of a large company. Last Autumn a long serving staff member with multiple sclerosis applied for medical retirement after a major relapse. After her sick pay expired she became entitled to long-term-sick-pay of a small percentage of salary. The Pension Scheme normally takes up to a year to approve medical retirement and long-term-sick-pay is intended to cover this gap. When it became clear that she could not return to work we re-allocated her role amongst colleagues as economies prevented replacement. However, last month she received a letter from Head Office to say that as her role was now redundant they wanted a consultation meeting with her. She contacted the Pension Scheme who told her that if she was made redundant before her medical retirement was approved she would lose every entitlement to medical retirement. pension. When I spoke to head office they told me that as medical retirement was very expensive to them there was a legitimate business imperative to save its cost by considering making her redundant. Head Office now seem hell bent on this and are insisting that a ‘consultation’ takes place even though she has produced a doctor’s note to say she can’t take part, and all that can be said on her behalf is that she is too ill ever to return to her profession. Is the head office approach fair and legal?