What happens at a sickness absence meeting and what are your rights?

A sickness absence meeting is a process, not a verdict

Being told you need to attend a sickness absence meeting is unsettling, especially if you are still unwell. No decision about your job has been made yet.

There has to be a conversation before anything is decided, not after. That conversation is what this meeting is.

What the meeting is and why your employer holds it

Employers are entitled to understand how your absence is affecting the business. They also want to check on your recovery and plan around your return. That is a legitimate purpose, not an ambush.

It becomes a problem when the meeting is used as a shortcut, a way of building a paper trail towards dismissal without doing the groundwork the law actually requires. The rest of this guide sets out what that groundwork looks like.

Your rights before the meeting

Your employer should tell you in advance roughly what the meeting will cover. Walking in blind is not how this is supposed to work.

If your absence is connected to a disability, you can ask for reasonable adjustmentsChanges an employer must make under the Equality Act 2010 for a disabled employee, where without them the employee would be at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled colleagues. What coun... to how the meeting itself is conducted. It could mean holding it by email or phone instead of in person. It could mean bringing a support person, or moving it away from the workplace. Ask early, in writing, and be specific about what would help.

The medical evidence your employer is required to get

Before your employer can fairly dismiss you for long-term illness, they have to get proper medical evidence and speak to you directly about it. Assumptions, guesswork, or outdated occupational health advice are not enough.

This was established in East Lindsey District Council v Daubney. The tribunal found that an employer cannot dismiss on the strength of a stale or incomplete medical picture. They have to ask the right questions, of the right people, close enough to the point of decision that the answer is still accurate.

If your employer has not consulted you about your own health before raising dismissal, that is worth noting. It goes to the heart of whether any later decision can be fair, not a technicality to be brushed aside.

What your employer has to weigh up before any decision

Getting medical evidence is only the start. Your employer then has to weigh it properly.

Spencer v Paragon Wallpapers Ltd set out what that balancing exercise has to include. Your length of service counts. So does the nature of your illness, your prognosisA prognosis is a medical assessment of the likely course and outcome of an illness or injury. In employment law, an employer is expected to obtain a prognosis before deciding to dismiss on grounds of ..., and your personal circumstances, each weighed against the impact on the business. It is not just a running total of days off.

Two employees with identical sickness records can be in genuinely different positions once you look at prognosis, length of service, and the practical effect on the team. A fair process treats those differences as relevant, not as noise to be smoothed over.

If dismissal becomes a real possibility

Being signed off sick at the point of dismissal is not enough on its own to decide whether that dismissal was fair. What matters is whether your employer engaged properly with the medical picture.

O’Brien v Bolton St Catherine’s Academy confirmed this. The tribunal looks at what your employer actually did, not whether they went through the motions.

O’Brien also draws a distinction worth remembering. How your health developed after dismissal can affect the compensation a tribunal awards. It does not change whether the dismissal itself was fair. Those are two separate questions, decided at different points.

If your absence is connected to a disability

Where your absence relates to a disability, your employer’s duty goes further than getting medical evidence and weighing it fairly. There is also a duty to make reasonable adjustments.

Archibald v Fife Council confirmed that duty can extend to redeploying you into a different role, without making you compete for it against other candidates, where your disability means your original role is no longer realistic. RedeploymentMoving you into a different role with your employer instead of dismissing you, usually considered when your original job is no longer possible because of ill health or disability. It should be offered... is meant to be a genuine alternative to dismissal, not a box-ticking exercise before dismissal happens anyway.

Before dismissal is even mentioned, your employer should have raised redeployment, adjustments to your hours or duties, and a phased return as possibilities. If none of that happened, that gap is worth raising directly.

What to ask for and say

Go into the meeting with a short, specific list.

Ask what medical evidence the decision will be based on, and ask to see it. Ask when you were last consulted about your own health, and what your own view of your prognosis is. Have redeployment or adjustments been considered? If not, ask why not. Check your contract or staff handbook for whether you can bring a companion, and if you can, arrange it in advance.

Write down what is said in the meeting as you go. If anything you’re told verbally contradicts what’s in writing elsewhere, note that down too.

If things are not moving in the right direction

If you feel the process is being rushed, or that the medical picture being used is out of date, say so in writing the same day, while it can still change the outcome.

Not sure whether what has happened so far amounts to unfair treatment? Our Situation Guide will help you work out where you stand. If you believe your employer has already got this wrong, our guide to raising a grievance sets out how to challenge it formally. And if the way you have been treated has made you think about resigning instead, read this first before you do it.