Employment Law – Excessive Working Hours – Breach Of Duty Of Care
n the case of Mark Hone v Six Continents Retail Limited (2005), a pub landlord having collapsed due to overwork successfully sued his former employers in the County Court for breach of duty of care.
Mr Hone, the claimant, started working for Bass (now Six Continents) as a pub manager in 1995 and in 1998 was awarded “Pub Manager of the Year”. However, in 1999 he started working at The Old Moat House where he found himself working 13 hour days.
He repeatedly complained to his employers that he was overworked but the employers took no action. He had no assistant manager and other staff members, who left, including two chefs and an administrative worker, were never replaced.
Mr Hone, who had refused to sign a clause opting out of EU legislation that limits the number of hours an employee works, began suffering from headaches and insomnia. In May 2000, he collapsed at work suffering from an anxiety disorder. In 2004, Mr Hone sued Bass for breaching the duty of care owed to him as an employee.
The first instance court ( Swansea County Court ) held that:
Bass had not taken reasonable steps to ensure that Mr Hone did not work over 48 hours, which was likely to cause injury to his health, and that resources were available to employ more support staff for him; and
Bass should pay Mr Hone 21,000 in damages.
Six Continents (formerly Bass) appealed this decision to the Court of Appeal who upheld the Swansea County Court’s judgment.
Comment: This case highlights the importance of not imposing excessive working hours on employees and ensuring that employees have sufficient staff support.
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RT COOPERS, 2005. This Briefing Note does not provide a comprehensive or complete statement of the law relating to the issues discussed nor does it constitute legal advice. It is intended only to highlight general issues. Specialist legal advice should always be sought in relation to particular circumstances.
[Top]Pre-employment Screening Of Doctors
Verification Of Professional Degrees
Among other things, doctors as a profession and Healthcare as an industry share a common need a good reputation. For doctors their good name is as important as their medical skills and abilities. For hospitals, an excellent reputation is as desirable as modern equipment and the best facilities.
A good name, like good will, is got by many actions and lost by one.. Lord Jeffery
When the good name is brought into disrepute it is the hardest of tasks to remedy. That is precisely the predicament in which Delhi hospitals find themselves.
Over the last few months there has been a spate of reports in various media about unscrupulous people practicing medicine and masquerading as doctors. They have been carrying on their wicked work without the education, training or qualifications to do so. These quacks have even infiltrated the sanctums of private hospitals and are no more confined to the narrow lanes and backstreets of crowded slums and unauthorized colonies.
Reports reveal that the problem is rather large and widespread. Large enough to be alarming. The, now dissolved, Medical Council of India had estimated that the number of quacks operating in the Delhi region would be about 40,000! Now compare that number with 45,000 (DMC database), which is the number of genuine registered doctors.
The erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI) and the Delhi Medical Council (DMC) have been working hard to get a grip on the problem and clean out the Augean stables. As a result of their efforts some 25 fake doctors were discovered working in respected private hospitals. These quacks have been suspended – with police cases filed against them – and are now enmeshed in the judicial process.
The lesson to be taken from these findings is that hospitals should wake up quickly to the vital necessity of verifying the educational and medical qualifications and antecedents of the medical staff they hire. They cannot afford being tarnished by the bad reputation that comes with hiring quacks and other unqualified medical personnel.
Background Screening and authentication of education qualifications should be rigorously carried out along with checks of professional degrees and references. These checks are especially crucial in an industry such as healthcare where the price of wrong hiring could be the loss of a life.
In a recent AuthBridge study, Background Screening Trends: October 08 July 09 it was found that 69% of discrepant cases relating to education were due to fake/forged documents. The bigger picture is even more disquieting. They show that 30% of all the cases we handled were discrepant – for a variety of reasons. Of these the majority pertained to false and fake qualifications. While these statistics do not directly relate to the medical profession, it is a pointer to what could be the magnitude of the problem facing it.
While hospitals of all hues and sizes need to be alive to the seriousness of the problem, it is also important for the various medical governing bodies to conduct checks of their own. They too have to retain their good name and integrity of their associations. The reconstituted Medical Council of India has to work, now and in its future avatar, to safeguard its international reputation too.
The following quotation is rather apt in the light of the problem. A good name is better than precious ointment (Ecclesiastes 7:1).
Read More: http://www.authbridge.com/resource-center/industry-updates.html
[Top]Employment Agency
All the people in this world need employment of some sort or the other. We need jobs to live, dream, build and achieve. Employment therefore has become one crucial aspect of life. In this regard employment agencies can help us find work. These organizations find work and help one and all with their solutions and assistance in clinching the right kind of employment that an individual with his given skills can get. They offer assistance in looking for a job, maximize chances of getting a satisfactory work position and also assist us with regard to upgrading our skills in order to retain the jobs we have in hand.
Employment agencies function in the following ways:
1.These agencies become the applicant’s representative in companies where the details of the representative have been submitted. 2. The employment agency screens the candidates when job postings are posted by it on behalf of the company. 3. The agency does not take any kind of remuneration from the candidates when they apply for the job postings. It earns from the organizations that approach the agency for the candidates. 4. Employment agencies earn not from the applicants but from the employers who also hire the agencies for meeting their purpose. 5. Employers hire the agency for a certain period of time. Basing on the number of reliable employees that the company gets from the agency the remuneration or the fees for the company is settled. 6. There are certain agencies that act only as searchers for candidates. They are paid to search for candidates for the company. It so happens that the company gets a candidate on its own, but as per the understanding between the agency and the company the candidate still needs to go through the process of being registered by the agency and go through various processes of getting employed. So this clearly spells out that the agency is solely responsible to the company it has tied up with. Therefore the rumours abiding that the employment agencies are out to fleece money from the candidates is totally baseless.
Employment firms do help job seekers to find employment. However, every applicant must know that in order to find a job, it is not enough to rely solely on the agencies. If possible they need to look out for a job on their own, or advertise their skills and expertise with online agencies to increase their chances of getting a good job.
Sai People Solutions, Inc. – Providing Staffing Services across various parts of USA. As a leader in the staffing industry, we pride in our ability to deliver right staffing resources.
[Top]Replacing P60 The Easy Way
A P60 form
At the end of each fiscal year, you will receive a P60 form from your employer, which shows your total amount of pay for income tax purposes and how much has been deducted in tax and National Insurance over the tax year. P60 is an important document – and therefore, make sure you keep it safely each time you receive it.
You will need your P 60 form when you want to do your tax return, claim back any tax that you have overpaid, or apply for tax credits. Besides that, the P 60 form also lets you know whether your employer is using the correct National Insurance number and deducting the right amount of National Insurance Contribution. And lastly, you may need it as a proof of your earnings when you want to apply for a mortgage or a loan.
As mentioned earlier, your employer will issue the P60 form at the end of each tax year, which falls on April 5. This is, however, provided you still work for your employer by then. If you are no longer employed before the fiscal year ends, you will only be given a P45 form at the end of your job. Often, employees do not receive their P 60 forms even after the tax year has ended. If you are one of them, do not hesitate to ask for it from your employer as you are entitled to it by law if you still work for the employer.
When receiving your P 60 form, make sure the following information is included in it:
Tax year to 5 April
Employer PAYE reference
Employees National Insurance number, if known
Employees name
Employees payroll number
Pay and tax in previous employment
Pay and tax in ‘this’ employment
‘Total for year’ pay and tax
Final tax code including the ‘Week 1’ or ‘Month 1’ indicator if applicable
National Insurance Contributions information
Employers name and address
Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) paid – if applicable
Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP) paid if applicable
Statutory Adoption Pay (SAP) paid if applicable
Student Loan Deductions in ‘this’ employment if applicable
It is quite common for employees to lose their P60 forms, or in some cases the forms are rejected because they are damaged or hand written. When one of these happens to you, we can help you replace them. We offer high-quality P60s that are prepared on approved Inland Revenue forms. Basically, you only need to tell us four things:
1.Your employer’s full address including postcode
2.Name of your employer’s tax district
3.Your employer’s tax district number
4.Gross salary paid in that financial year
With this information and our fully computerized payroll system, you are guaranteed to receive accurate results.
Other than that, we also provide payslip calculator on our website that you can use for free. By using this salary calculator you will be able to know whether your employer has been deducting the right amount of tax and National Insurance Contribution from your salary. What you need to key in are details of the gross monthly pay and PAYE coding.
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