Employment Archives - Chronic Illness Inclusion

Flexibility: energy limiting chronic illness and the future of work

7 October 2019 Editorialteam Chronic Illness, ELCI, Employment, Energy Impairment, Energy Limiting Chronic Illness

Anna Ruddock writes about some options.

On the face of it, organisations are getting better at facilitating “flexible working”. Inevitably, some are moving faster and more innovatively than others.

Some of those others have yet to acknowledge that flexible working is an employment right that has been enshrined in UK legislation since 2014 rather than a reward for productivity. Nevertheless, you’d struggle to find an office-based organisation that hasn’t realised that flexible working is something they need to be thinking about.

So far so things-are-improving. That said, it’s a very limited definition of “flexibility” that is incorporated into most flexible working policies. What it usually means is a policy to allow employees to work outside the office. Which is important for those who benefit from it, including disabled people with energy limiting chronic illnesses (ELCI*), like me, who are well enough to work part-time but cannot physically spend all of that time in an office.

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Leave a comment Chronic Illness, ELCI, Employment, Energy Limiting Chronic Illness, Flexible working

Changing the system so that more chronically ill people can work

18 September 2018 Editorialteam Chronic Illness, DWP, DWP Benefits, ELCI, Employment, Energy Impairment, Energy Limiting Chronic Illness

Victoria Clutton highlights the barriers to work faced by the chronically ill.

In May, I started my first ever job which I found through a wonderful charity called Astriid. My job is five hours a week, working from home, with no set hours and amazingly supportive co-workers – the holy grail of employment opportunities for the chronically ill. Even so, it’s been a huge adjustment and ongoing struggle. A few years ago I was declared fit for work despite protestations by my doctor and two other medical specialists. The experience was a year of ludicrous horror before I eventually relapsed badly enough for it to be worth re-applying for benefits. These contrasting experiences have caused me to reflect on the changes that are necessary to allow more chronically ill people to work.

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Leave a comment Access to Work, Astriid, Chronic Illness, ELCI, Employment, Energy Limiting Chronic Illness, ME

On not being believed

27 January 2018 Editorialteam Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Disability, DWP, Energy Impairment, Energy Limiting Chronic Illness, Mental Health, Systemic Disbelief, Wheelchair

Wheelchair Vista on the lasting effects of being doubted.

Many of us with long term conditions struggle to accept that we can no longer live life as we used to. It took me almost ten years.

I carried on working for longer than I should. A resident at the care home I managed said; “It’s doing you no good keeping on working. Why don’t you reduce your hours or stop altogether?” She saw that I could not stand for long without leaning against a wall. Staff noticed that I always relied on the lift and was often in urgent need of the loo.

When I had time off work for minor surgery it had to be extended due to massive bruising sustained in a car crash. This was soon followed by investigations for IBS and a referral for knee surgery, which culminated in my employment contract being ended.

Chronic Illness and graduation

21 September 2017 Editorialteam Chronic Illness, Education, Employment, Energy Impairment, Energy Limiting Chronic Illness

Rebecca Boot tackles the painful subject of employment for the chronically ill.

I’m back at university, studying again after my body threw a fantastic tantrum the last time I tried it.

My university has a real focus on employment and one of the highest graduate employment rates in the country. That is great, everyone wants to be able to get a good job when they leave university right? Isn’t that the point of going?

Not really, not for me at least. I applied to Uni because I love learning and my brain likes to be busy.

But here’s the rub – I am not employable, not really, not as I am now. I have plenty of skills, I am smart, I’m a self-starter, I have a whole bunch of somewhat impressive things on my CV, I meet the person specification for a whole lot of jobs already. But I’m not employable.

Accessing Support: A system geared toward physical impairments

13 June 2017 Editorialteam Brain Fog, Chronic Illness, Disability, DWP, DWP Benefits, Education, ELCI, Employment, Energy Impairment, Energy Limiting Chronic Illness, Social Care, Wheelchair

Sarah Campbell asks whether chronic illness needs its own set of responses to social security, employment and social care.

I have a combination of both a chronic illness and a progressive muscle condition, offering me insight into both “worlds” of invisible fluctuating illness and visible physical impairment. Some issues are extremely different while others are shared. But so far I’ve found that accessing support is often biased toward purely “traditional” physical impairments.

As a wheelchair user, there are many access barriers ranging from getting an adequate wheelchair in the first place, to housing, transport, social care etc. But the law is generally on our side, precisely because disabled people fought for those rights over the past decades.

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Leave a comment Chronic Fatigue, Chronic Illness, Disability, DWP, ELCI, Employment, Energy Impairment, Invisible Illness