Therapy House

Personal Leave

Personal leave (sick and carers leave) allows employees to take time off to help them deal with:

What is Personal Leave?

Personal leave (sick and carers leave) allows employees to take time off to help them deal with:

  • Personal illness or mental health
  • Caring responsibilities
  • Family emergencies

We encourage all our team members to ensure they understand Personal Leave definitions as per the National Employment Standards. This helps to guide expectations and avoid situations where personal leave requests may be rejected or managed.

Please see https://www.fairwork.gov.au/leave/sick-and-carers-leave for more details.

Clinician Procedure for Personal Leave

We would like you to notify clients as priority and then the clinic.

Steps would involve:

  1. You need to send a Power Diary SMS message directly to at least your first 3 clients, or as many as you can so they have fair notice – when admin starts, it is too late. If it is the weekend and you know you will not be able to attend on Monday – please message all your clients as the clinic is not staffed and this gives clients as much notice as possible.
  2. When sending Power Diary messages, ensure to ask your clients to reply if they have seen the message. There is a template to assist with this.

Example:

Clinician/Admin: “Unfortunately (clinician's name) is unwell today and can’t attend the clinic. Your appointment today is cancelled. Please reply YES to confirm you have received it, otherwise, admin will call to confirm. Apologies for the inconvenience. Therapy House”

Client: YES

Admin: Add a personal note ‘SMS sent’ or the comments section of that appointment.

Once a response has been received, add “SMS response received" to notes and adjust to cancelled and fill in appropriate fields.

This will make it possible to know who to follow up if nothing has been confirmed and

what parts have been completed, need to be done or missed.

  1. Notify Kaya and Meara via text – Kaya so she knows which clinicians are onboard and Meara so she can follow up your client messages when she starts.
  2. Check Power Diary for responses by 10:30 to ensure all clients have been taken care of.
  3. Inform admin if you would like any clients to be rescheduled.

Clients should ideally receive at least two hours' notice for a cancellation of a session. If you decide you will not be able to attend work please follow the process in the step above.

Admin Procedure for Personal Leave

  1. Send a message to Letitia as early as possible so we can ensure that the clinic reception has coverage for the day.
  2. When sending Power Diary messages, ensure to ask your clients to reply if they have seen the message. There is a template to assist with this.

IMPORTANT

The clinic allows you to use 2 single days sick leave without a medical certificate. After this, you will be required to submit a medical certificate for sick leave to be approved. Please ensure all sick leave applications are submitted promptly on XERO to ensure that your pay is correctly processed.

Clinician Sick Leave Process

How a clinician sick day flows through the team — each lane shows that role’s steps in order.

Clinician

  1. Wake up sick, or decide you are too unwell to attend the next day.

  2. Message clients in Power Diary. If it’s the weekend, message all Monday clients; if it’s the morning of, message at least your first 3 clients. Then mark the diary with “SMS SENT”.

  3. Text your supervisor and admin to notify them, and confirm that the client messages have been sent.

  4. Mark the diary with “SMS Received” and change the status to CANCELLED – Clinician.

  5. Check Power Diary at 10:30 (admin start at 9:30) to confirm all clients have been notified. Notify admin of any clients to be prioritised for reschedule.

  6. Apply for sick leave in XERO — paid or unpaid, depending on your contract/balance.

Client

  1. “Unfortunately (clinician’s name) is unwell today and can’t attend the clinic. Your appointment today is cancelled. Please reply YES to confirm you have received it, otherwise admin will call when they arrive to confirm. Apologies for the inconvenience. Therapy House”

  2. Client replies YES

Admin

  1. Make checking clinician diary notifications the first clinic task of the day.

  2. Mark the diary with “SMS Received” and change the status to CANCELLED – Clinician.

  3. Message any outstanding clients to notify them of the cancellation, and mark confirmations next to the diary.

  4. If clients ask to reschedule, offer any gaps in the diary — unless the clinician has indicated which clients to prioritise.

Supervisor

  1. Remind the clinician to apply for leave in XERO, and to upload a medical certificate if on sick leave for more than 2 consecutive days.

Note: Submit leave request via XERO to ensure approved prior to pay processing if applying for paid sick leave

Messaging Clients a Cancellation Notice

  1. Go to Communication in the clients portal on Power Diary
  2. Click New SMS
  3. Go to Template and select Cancellation Notice
  4. Click Save and Send to finalise

Note: This is an expectation if you are unable to attend at short notice.