6.1 In determining whether an individual may be granted access to exceptional extended paid sick leave the following
      criteria apply:

      6.1.1 The employee should ordinarily be under the current or recent clinical care of a consultant either as an inpatient or outpatient. This excludes employees                   attending primarily for report preparation or medico legal purposes.

6.1.2 The case must be referred by the employer to its Occupational Health Service for medical advice.

6.1.3 The responsibility lies with the employee to furnish any treating doctor’s medical reports requested within an appropriate time-frame to avail of the                     exceptional extended paid sick leave. A treating consultant’s specialism must be appropriate to the critical illness for which the employee
         is making a claim.

6.1.4 The Occupational Physician, from the employer’s Occupational Health Service, will advise whether, in their opinion, the following criteria are met:

i. The employee is medically unfit to return to his or her current duties or (where practicable) modified duties in the same pay grade

ii. The nature of this medical condition has at least one of the following characteristics:

       (a) Acute life threatening physical illness

       (b) Chronic progressive illness, with well-established potential to
            reduce life expectancy

      (c) Major physical trauma ordinarily requiring corrective acute
           operative surgical treatment

      (d) In-patient or day hospital care of ten consecutive days or  greater.  In the case of pregnancy-related or assisted pregnancy-
           related illness, the requirement for hospitalisation of ten consecutive days will be reduced to two or more consecutive
           days of in-patient hospital / clinic care. 

           There is a right of appeal of the medical decision and/or management decision.

A detailed Guidance Document on Changes to Critical Illness Protocol is available from the INMO Information Office.