Having a long-term condition may impact your ability to work or change what kind of work you’re able to do. Employers should be able to provide reasonable adjustments to support you.
Being able to work can be a positive experience in itself for your own self-esteem and social interaction. In most cases, employment is necessary for financial reasons.
After diagnosis and treatment, you may find that you can go on to lead a ‘normal’ or ‘near-normal’ life once you have achieved good hormone replacement therapy. Some people may not need hormone therapy. However, there are others who have different experiences. If you are still struggling with symptoms then working may cause some challenges with your existing employment or finding work.
You may need extra flexibility in your work to help with possible fatigue, pain, unpredictable symptoms and regular medical appointments and tests.
Knowing your rights in the workplace
There are legal frameworks in place to protect workers with long-term health conditions that classify as a disability. Below is a recording of a talk delivered by Ezra MacDonald, an employment barrister, setting out these legal protections.
What this talk covers:
- Legal definitions of disability and how long-term conditions relate to this
- How a long-term health condition or disability may impact your ability to work
- What legal protections are in place to protect disabled workers, and what employers should do to support you
- How to request support from your employer
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Pituitary Foundation proforma letter
It’s important for your employer to understand how your condition may impact your ability to work, if you want to receive reasonable adjustments. If you are finding it difficult to explain your condition and its impacts to your employer, a letter from your consultant can help. The Pituitary Foundation has a template letter that consultants can personalise with your health details and send to your employer.
It is important to note that you will need to sign a letter giving approval to your consultant to divulge your sensitive health data to your employer. You will need to arrange this with your consultant, the secretary or the nurse.
Unfortunately, we can not give this proforma letter to patients but only directly to consultants. Many consultants provide such letters for patients as standard, but we can provide our proforma letter if this is preferred. If this is desired please let us know and we can email a copy.*
If you are having significant difficulty with communication with your consultant and are also having employment issues, then you need to discuss this with your Disability Employment Advisor. You can normal find these at your local we cannot get involved in individual cases Job centre, contact your local Citizen’s Advice Bureau or ACAS. We cannot get involved in individual cases.
*We do not send uninvited proforma letters to consultants as we do not intervene in a patient/consultant relationship in any way except to provide proforma letters and this is only done if invited by the consultant and patient.