Occupational health advice

[mozajka]

Hi all, sorry if this should be posted elsewhere.

I have a meeting booked with occupational health next week and wondered if anyone has been through this and what I should expect.

I don’t really need many adjustments through work, no need to change hours I guess, other than commuting less. I live around 90mins away from the office, and I have to walk, train and tube and walk again. At the moment everyone is expected to be in 3 times a week. When I joined it was only once but they increased it in second half of 2024. I was ok with it up until June last year (although I was unexplainably tired many times before that) when I had a relapse and subsequent diagnosis of RRMS. Since June until now, my employer let me wfh as I had issues with walking for a few months and was waiting for dmt. I’m much better now but I now commuting 3 days will just make me a zombie. Plus I am awaiting blood tests so see if the dmt is working and whether my white blood cells count goes down. So I am hoping they will let me reduce the days, ideally to 1. I already proved to them I am productive at home as they checked some stats recently.

Any advice on what to say, or what to avoid please?

I will bring all my medical records but I don’t have any letters from gp recommending any changes, is this something I can request from the ms nurses?

Thank you

Paulina

[alison100]

You have a good case, by the sound of it. It’s in their interests to keep you delivering on your side of the employment contract.

My guess is that occupational health will be supportive. The only concern I would have is that your work bosses (whose decision it is) will have heard it all before from people who want to wfh for ever despite not having a good reason like yours, and they might therefore be a little jaded and hard to convince (and also under pressure from their bosses on this one). But there’s nothing you can do about that except calmly make your case for reasonable adjustments to help you as a disabled person to do your job. If you have occupational health behind you, your bosses will find it harder to say no.

Good luck.

[mozajka]

Hi @alison100 and thank you. I think you’re right, I should have a good case but it wont be easy. Saying that, I was in the office yesterday, busy day with meetings and client lunch, I got home exhausted and guess what, today, even though I tried to have longer sleep, I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus and feel all sorts of symptoms in my body. So hopefully there will be some leeway based on the diagnosis. Wish me luck next week.