My friend contacted me today and told me that his manager called him into the office last night and asked him to resign before they fire him. He refused and they said he is going to lose his job on medical capability grounds, surely they can't do this without at least asking a doctor or OT to review his records? He is still carrying out the same job he's always done to the same standard.

A friend of mine started work declaring on the application form that he had a disability in that he had a long term health condition that could, at times, affect his mobility and speech. The job involved some night work as defined by the WTD. Recently his employer has started to ask questions about his medical condition. He has always been very open about this condition as it is something that leaves physical scars as well as some problems. He provided the work with leaflets from a charity for people with the condition (and approved by the department of health) when he started his work there. The boss has now insinuated that she feels that he is unsuitable to work there any more and that he may be fired on medical grounds soon. He has worked for the company for 2 years. At no time has he seen a doctor, filled in a medical questionaire, been referred to occupational health or anything other than informal chats with the manager about his general health in relation to stress caused by family problems (his mother has cancer), his manager is not medically trained, he has reason to believe she has not even attended college. He has discussed his suitability to work nights with his specialist during check ups and the specialist has always encouraged him to work at this job feeling that he is fit and able and there is no medical reason why night shift is unsuitable. His manager is aware of this although it is not in writing, his condition is well managed by medication. Now my question is, is there a procedure that large companies should follow when they employ someone who is disabled? My friend claims disability benefits in the form of DLA and WTC (disability component). Also if they feel he is unsuitable to work where does he stand? There is no alternate shifts or positions available at his location to transfer him onto. He does not feel his medical condition is affecting his work and believes that this is happening as a result of a dispute with the manager over allocation of holiday time.

I'll play

it's pooling in the legs causing the black outs. the doctors can't do much except tell her to wear compression socks which has helped a lot. She's had all the heart tests (ECG, echo, stress test) just to be sure and even an EEG to rule out epilepsy.

As a qualified microbiologist I must ask how on earth do people catch E.coli (or anything else that isn't transmitted in the air) from the guy in the next bed? Last time I checked E.coli was most commonly spread by ingestion, what the hell do patients get up to these days?

brilliant thanks mrsc i'll look into those

I've promised an elderly neighbour that i'd look into this for her and I figured that here is a good place to start. So she's a "wee auld wumman" (that's what she says when I ask her age), she's recently been widowed and she's finding it hard to cope at home on her own. She doesn't want to go into a care home and she saw a programme recently on dogs that aren't guide dogs but who can apparently do things like unload the washing machine, call for an ambulance and a whole lot of other stuff. She recons that between the dog and the meals on wheels who comes in every day she'll be able to live at home on her own plus she'd love the companionship of the dog. She's got no problems walking so she can exercise the dog, her difficulty is more that she's not got much strength in her upper body due to old age i think. She also has black outs due to her age but her house is on one level so no chance of her injuring herself on the stairs. Now I've looked but I can't find these dogs at all, does anyone know which people train the dogs and if so if they have a branch in scotland that gives dogs to old people (i think they may be aimed more at wheelchair users as the lady on the programme had a wheelchair)?

corn on the cob?

lol unfortunately i have to stay here for uni or else i would seriously consider it

housework, too many things in this house need cleaning. job hunting, so many jobs so little probability of actually getting one.

I think Al is right. I was told by ACAS to submit ET1 and state that the grievance procedure is still being carried out. This was to stop my claim going out of time.

I've put on a kilo - slightly frustrated!

Isn't this a problem for the information commisioner?

It just seems highly suss that we can go for days without post then get it all at once when the good postie is on. We live in a flat with a shared entry door but there's always someone here to open it. Other flats in the street have the same problem but nothing of the sort happens to the houses with doors that open onto the street. Also am I really allowed to shred someone elses post?

I've got a couple of problems with my post and I was wondering if any of the royal mail workers on the site could give some insight. 1. I keep getting mail for someone who doesn't live here. I've lived in here for almost 2 years so it's not a just moved in issue. We've tried everything from calling into the post office, telling the postman and writing "not at this address" and "return to sender" on the envelope and sticking them back in the post box. These tactics have worked somewhat but we're still getting mail from the same PO BOX in Kent for this guy and a quick google seemed to show that this is a DCA. We're worried that they're threatening baliffs and we're stuck here not knowing because we can't open them. What can we do? 2. The postman only seems to post here once or twice a week. There are 2 posties who come and one guy is great with everything delivered quickly but if the younger guy is on we can go over a week without post and then it all comes at once (when the older guy is on -he's also a driver and sometimes gets made to do parcels instead). This has resulted in bills coming late and we've once had 2 warnings through the same day as the actual bill. Who do we complain to about this?

You used to be able to have the 5 year one extended for free when you turned 16 as long as the passport hadn't expired.

My friend has asked me for advice on this problem but I don't know what to tell her. The facts are: *May 2006 - Loan for £500 taken out from [loancompany] (don't know which but one of these high interest types by the sound) *September 2006 - moves out of family home to uni, payment is made through her parents every week *December 2006 - cash given to parents to pay the loan off in full and including interest. Recently she called home and her younger sister told her she had mail. The sister then read her mail to her and among the usual stuff is a letter from [loancompany]. The sister read out that friend owed [loancompany] 700 and odd pound and was about £350 in arrears. When friend called [loancompany] to see what the story was she'd been told that the balance had been paid in full just after the letter was sent (letter dated January 2008 ). Obviously with the balance paid in full [loancompany] don't care any more but my friend is worried about her credit rating. She doesn't want to cause too much fuss with her parents as the family is under a lot of stress as one of her relatives is terminally ill and in need of round the clock care which is provided by my friends mum. What do i tell her? I was going to tell her to leave it but I don't know if that's the best advice. She was living at a different address before the arrears happened and has a different surname to her parents.

I would definately get back to your MP. I wonder if it's worth getting some advice in the general forum as you may be able to take this to court as a civil case and get your money back that way. I daresay your N1 argument would be that you were out needless expense due to the councils incompetence and damage to your property.

absolutely not. NEVER withhold council tax, they can send you to prison for that.

No I'm being perfectly serious. I know it sounds crazy but rules are rules, cleaners have to be protected from the blood on the dressings just as much as patients do. And blood bourne viruses don't leap off of dressings and onto people, you'd have to come into contact with the blood before it dried and killed the virus particle so chances are nothing untoward would come of leaving the dressing there until after visiting when the correct protocol could be put in place.

I swear it was like a scene from "whose line is it anyway?", the guy taking the interview was not the manager (she was off on maternity leave) and he'd never conducted an interview before! He only asked me 6 questions (one of them being "so which one are you?" and another "how do you spell your surname?" and I had to ask him what sort of hours he wanted this person to work and what sort of person were they looking to employ. Hopefully his interviewing technique got better as the day went on but I'm quite sure that I never got that job

perhaps the cleaner didn't have the correct equipment to remove the blood soaked dressings? There is a lot of protocol around handling blood in any form within most industries including the cleaning industry and the NHS. Incidentally you don't catch MRSA from contaminated blood products.

They do if you fill them in completely right and make sure that it's left somewhere where someone will find it when you die. They don't work in Scotland, however, all of the packs available are compliant with English law and not Scottish law.

Aren't speech impediments covered by DDA? I know it's not an impediment but an accent but I think it might have a shot (a long shot but still a shot) at race discrimination, anti-english attitude by a welsh employer?? I'd call ACAS and ask for their advice before dismissing this entirely.

People who are perfectly capable of looking for, and using, a dictionary but who are too damn lazy. People who belong to the above group who accuse others of social snobbery for picking up their mistakes, it's not snobbery it's DYSLEXIA and it's hard enough to read without lazy folk polluting normal spelling and grammar with their nonsense interpretations of English. People who tell you how many calories are in your irn-bru as if I didn't already know People who assume that when I talk about my autistic niece I'm really talking about a cabbage who can't do anything for herself. Job interviews, if you're not going to employ me then don't invite me to have a nice chat with you.