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The NHS provides free healthcare to the majority of UK residents.

Health insurance can help cover the costs of medical bills if treatment is private. This allows the individual to choose the level of care they receive and how it will be provided.

Private health insurance is not a mandatory requirement. Nevertheless, unless the NHS is an acceptable option, private medical treatment can be especially costly. This is especially true for serious and complex condition

What does it cover?

Like any other insurance policy, the type of coverage you can expect will depend on the policy your purchase.

A basic policy will typically cover the costs of most tests, surgeries and other in-patient treatments as well as day-care surgery

Other policies will extend their coverage to include out-patient treatments as well as fees for specialists and consultants. These policies may also partially cover the costs of your expenses for staying at an NHS hospital overnight.

What isn’t covered?

There are some conditions and treatments that healthcare insurance will not cover including:

• pre-existing medical conditions
• organ transplants
• costs of a natural pregnancy and childbirth
• cosmetic surgery for personal reasons
• Sports injuries or injuries related to war and war-like hostility
• Chronic conditions

You may find a policy that covers mental health and sports injuries but these are not typically included in the policy.

Do you need it?

This is really a matter of personal decision.

Because there is free medical service from the NHS, there will only be a few reasons that you need private care:

–           You want to avoid the long waits associated with NHS medical treatment.

–           You would rather not use public medical treatment and would prefer to use private treatment whenever possible.

–           You would like to be covered for medications and treatments that are not included in the NHS treatment plan. These may include specialist treatments or treatment for sports related injuries. You will need to carefully read the policy to be sure you are getting the treatment you need.

Who doesn’t need private medical insurance cover?

Private medical insurance is not needed for:

–           Anyone satisfied with the NHS for your care

–           Those with medical insurance from their employer.

–           Those concerned about the health of their children — children receive priority in the NHS.

–           Your resources only allow for basic insurance like homeowners, car and possibly life insurance if you have dependants.

–           You have accumulated debts and no way to pay them all off — it would be better to put your spare cash to pay off your debts.

–           You can cover your own individual treatments — if you can pay out of pocket for your private medical treatment, this may be cheaper than taking on regular premium payments.

Pros and cons

Note: The following pointers will depend on the insurance policy you buy.

Pros:

–           Specialist referrals — You can ask your GP to refer your case to a specialist who can provide an expert opinion and even recommend specialist treatment.

–           Get the scans you need when you need them — if the NHS is taking a long time to get you’re your scans or won’t provide them, you can use coverage to pay for this medical need.

–           Reduced Waiting time — you can use your insurance policy to save time that would be spent waiting for NHS treatment, if the waiting time would be over 6 weeks.

–           Select your hospital and surgeon. In theory, you can use your insurance policy to select the surgeon and hospital that fits your time and location — something not possible for the NHS.

–           Get a Private Room — you can use your insurance to insure you use a private room, as opposed to staying in an open ward that accommodates all sexes. 

–           Access Specialist Drugs and Treatments — some specialist drugs and treatments have not been sanctioned by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) or the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in England and Wales (NICE). 

–           Physiotherapy — you will access your physiotherapy much faster by using medical insurance as NHS treatment could take a while.

Cons

–           You might find better care with the NHS — those suffering from heart disease, stroke or cancer can find priority treatment working with the NHS. NHS hospitals can be every bit as good as private hospitals or better even.

–           It is Costly! Your typical insurance premium for a small family — two adults over 40 and two kids under 10 — will run as high as £700 to £1,800 per year. The cost of premiums also go up each year. This means that by the time you are older and really need insurance coverage the premiums may be too high to afford.

–           Chronic Conditions are not covered — Diabetes, cancers and other conditions deemed incurable will not be covered by your policy.

In the age of smartphones, which generally tend to have recording facilities, it is not unusual for employees to covertly record internal meetings, including grievance meetings or disciplinary hearings.

The recent Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) judgment in Phoenix House v Stockman has addressed whether covert recordings by employees automatically amount to gross misconduct. However, it is also useful for employers to understand whether covert recordings are admissible as evidence against them within employment tribunal claims.

Admissibility

Employers often assume that a covert recording by an employee cannot be used against them. However, the parts of the meeting where the employee was present can be admissible before an employment tribunal if the employment tribunal believes it is relevant. This is entirely at the discretion of the employment tribunal.

In addition, whilst a covert recording of any private discussions of an employer’s disciplinary or grievance panel generally cannot be put before an employment tribunal on the grounds of public policy, the employment tribunal may adopt a different view where a claim involves (for example) discrimination and the recording of private deliberations potentially evidences this.

Misconduct

In Phoenix House v Stockman the EAT confirmed that whilst it will generally amount to misconduct for an employee not to inform an employer that a recording is being made, all the circumstances will need to be considered, including the employee’s reason for making a secret recording, the employer’s position regarding covert recordings and any damage done to the employer as a result of information being recorded without its knowledge, before it can be concluded that a recording amounts to gross misconduct.

The judgment

In this particular case, the EAT decided that the recording did not amount to gross misconduct because the employee had not recorded the meeting with the intention of entrapment, but simply for her own records.

Guidance

It is of course good practice for parties to communicate an intention to record a meeting, however, it is possible that this will not always be the case. Before concluding that an employee is guilty of gross misconduct upon the discovery of covert recording, employers should therefore consider:

• The nature of the information recorded – is it confidential?
• The purpose of the recording – is this simply to assist the employee’s recollection at a later date, is it to avoid the risk of misrepresentation, is it to enable an employee to obtain subsequent legal advice or is it entrapment?
• The extent of the employee’s blameworthiness – was the employee warned not to make a recording and/or have they lied about doing so?
• Any evidence of the attitude of the employer to such conduct – does the disciplinary policy address the issue?

In view of the final point above, it is advisable for employers to update their disciplinary policy in order to confirm that covert recording is an example of gross misconduct.

Carla Gowing is an Employment Solicitor at Hatch Brenner on Theatre Street in Norwich. Call 01603 660 811 or email carlagowing@hatchbrenner.co.uk

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d231765ed915d0bc413baeb/Phoenix_House_Limited_v_Mrs_Tatiana_Stockman_UKEAT_0058_18_OO.pdf

In the recent Court of Appeal case of Okedina v Chikale, it has been confirmed that, in certain circumstances, a contract of employment can still be enforceable where there has been a breach of immigration rules.

Facts

Mrs Okedina and Ms Chikale are both Malawian nationals. Mrs Okedina and her husband have lived in the UK for some time, but had brought Ms Chikale to the UK to work as a live-in domestic worker in July 2013.

Ms Chikale was granted a six-month visa further to Mrs Okedina having applied for a visa on her behalf, based on false information.

When the six-month visa expired, Mrs Okedina kept Ms Chikale’s passport and told her that she would arrange for an extension. Ms Chikale therefore remained in the UK and continued working for Mrs Okedina.

Mrs Okedina’s false application for an extension, forging Ms Chikale’s signature, was refused, as was an appeal, of which Ms Chikale was unaware.

Throughout her employment, Ms Chikale was required to work seven days a week, for very long hours, and was paid only £3,300. Ms Chikale was summarily dismissed and evicted from the house in June 2015, after she requested more money.

Claims

Ms Chikale pursued a number of employment tribunal claims including unfair dismissal, unpaid holiday and unlawful deductions from wages. Mrs Okedina attempted to rely on the ‘illegality defence’ on the basis that Ms Chikale’s contract of employment was unenforceable because it was either illegal or illegally performed since November 2013.

However, judgment was given in Ms Chikale’s favour at both employment tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal level. Mrs Okedina therefore appealed to the Court of Appeal, but was unsuccessful.

Appeal

The Court of Appeal noted that there are two forms of illegality which may have resulted in the contract being unenforceable:

1) statutory illegality

2) common law illegality.

Statutory illegality

The Court considered whether Ms Chikale’s contract was unenforceable because her employment was in breach of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 (“The Act”). Given that The Act does not prohibit a person from employing someone in breach of immigration restrictions, but provides for civil and criminal penalties to be imposed instead, the Court concluded that an innocent employee without the appropriate immigration status should not be deprived of their ability to claim.

Common law illegality

The Court decided that Ms Chikale did not knowingly participate in the illegal performance of her contract in view of the fact that she relied on Mrs Okedina to deal with her visa situation, that Mrs Okedina used false information, that Ms Chikale did not sign the false extension application form and that Mrs Okedina kept Ms Chikale away from the immigration appeal hearing. The contract therefore could not be rendered unenforceable at common law.

Conclusion

This claim was very specific to the facts eg the innocence of Ms Chikale in the circumstances, which may not always be the case. However, there are additional situations in which a person may not be aware that they are working illegally, such as employees of large companies which take responsibility for obtaining the necessary permissions for foreign employees or victims of trafficking.

https://www.bailii.org/ew/case…

Carla Gowing is a Norwich Employment Solicitor. For advice or to arrange an initial meeting, call 01603 660 811 or email carlagowing@hatchbrenner.co.uk

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is used by businesses and companies across the world to get websites ranking higher up Google and other search engines. The ultimate premise is that the more ‘ranking signals’ and ‘ranking factors’ a website satisfies, the higher it will rank online. However, the accepted standard is set by Google, although other search engines like Bing, Yahoo and Baidoo have some of their own specific ranking factors.

When it comes to being found by customers though, targeting the best searches and search terms for your business is really what is key in the first instance. If for example you are selling serviced office spaces and meeting rooms, you wouldn’t attempt to target searches relating to mobile phone cases or mortgages (source: Brentano), as such terms would incorporate far less relevant prospective customers.

Therefore, most businesses will turn to either ‘generic’ or local searches in order to capture the best customers for their business. Generic searches are those that specify the item or service or relevant service area, without specifying geographical areas. Local searches are those which target searches around specific geographical locations.

Generic Targeting

Generally, when you target generic and non-geographical search terms online, you will need to focus on the wider industry or product area. This will all be in addition to the usual Google and search engine factors such as meta data, crawling factors, website speed and performance, website content and others.

For example, in the case of content you will need to think about writing about the things that people will be looking for information around, encompassing the wider industry rather than specific areas and products. You will also not need to spend too much time looking for local and location-limited links. Rather, you will more than likely need to be looking for guide, business and general news-style websites for PR and backlinks.

Local Targeting

When you are trying to locally target specific, local searches, you will need to consider what people in the geographical area are likely to be looking for and what they are likely to want in the case of content. For example, the content on your website will need to be focused on the area and geographical area in question. If you were trying to target ‘estate agents in Westminster’ for example, you would need to look at local area information and statistics when planning the content for your website.

You will also however need to satisfy the generic ranking signals and factors, as they are key to getting your locally targeted content on the radar for search engines. When it comes to links and PR, look at local businesses, local media, newspapers and even ambassadors and councils who may be able to promote you to the local community; this is something search engines notice and should not be overlooked