Hi
Slightly unusual this I think so bear with me please.
My brother-in-law is a GP. For the last 3 years he has been working at the same surgery/practice but under a succession of fixed term contract arrangements. These have varied in length from 6 to 12 months, but have been continuous i.e. no break between them. Each contract has a 3 month notice period on either side.
The latest contract runs from mid Jan to 16th June. About 2 weeks ago he asked the practice manager if the contract would be renewed for another 6 months and was given a verbal “yes”.
Then on Monday this week he received a letter at home, plus a copy at work stating that he was to be made redundant at the end of the contract due to “financial reasons”.
He has lots of questions on this – but the key ones are:
• Given that it’s a fixed term contract, could he have reasonably expected the three months’ notice to have been given to confirm non-renewal
• As he has worked under FTC for the whole time he has been there is he being made redundant or is the contract simply being terminated at its due date?
• As he has been there for 3 years plus, has he actually accrued any rights even though it’s all been FTC?
• Why would they make him redundant at all?
• Is he entitled to redundancy pay?
• Has due process been followed here?
There are some others but I won’t list them all here.
Top and bottom is that he really doesn’t want to make trouble – it’s not his way. He just wants to know if what has been done is right and if he should have been treated differently?
Any advice gratefully received.
Andrew Walker
Andrew Walker
