Worker health | Surge in employment tribunal claims relating to long Covid as employers struggle to manage workplace sickness

Employment tribunal claims relating to long Covid are surging as employers put pressure on long-term absentees to return to work.

An analysis of data obtained from HM Courts & Tribunal Service reveals that 164 employment tribunal claims involved employees with long Covid in 2024, up from 144 in 2023 and 88 in 2022. According to National Statistics, approximately 2 million people in the UK are suffering from long Covid.

Nockolds, the expert law firm that gathered the data, says that tribunal claims are rising as employers struggle to manage staff with long Covid either by putting pressure on them to return to work, which could give rise to disability discrimination claims, or by dismissing them if they conclude that they are unable to return to work, which could amount to unfair dismissal.

According to Nockolds, it is likely that increasing numbers of employees with long Covid will have been intermittently absent from work for months, or even years, putting HR teams under growing pressure to reduce long-term absenteeism. This is complicated because of the difficulty obtaining an accurate diagnosis for long Covid, which can lead to accusations of malingering.