Flexible working requests and the law: a guide for district nurses

摘要

Over 3 million people in the UK combine work with caring responsibilities. They are often required to balance work and family life in order to undertake their caring role. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (Hegewisch, 2009), most requests for flexible working come from women. As the majority of the workforce in the NHS are women, district nurses will undoubtedly come across colleagues as well as patients who might seek advice about their rights to request a flexible working arrangement to balance their work and home life.It is important that district nurses are aware of the law and the rights of individuals to request flexible working arrangements.They can then advise those entitled to request flexible working arrangements about the procedure to be followed and the appeal process if a request is refused.