Employers refusing sick absence

So, weird question for map, but I'm struggling to find anything on Google.

Short version, my partner works in care and, while in general it seems like a terrible industry to work in in terms of office staff, she had a run in with her Senior today and I wanted to double check we have our facts straight. Basically, my understanding of the law, and what I was told told to follow when I was a supervisor, is that if an employee calls in sick, there is no legal right to force them to work.

I was gonna do a long post with context and stuff, but that's actually kinda the whole thing, the rest isn't really important.

So, do you guys know what the law is with regards to sick days? If my partner has called in sick, is her company allowed to force her to come into work?

 

Thanks mate, planning to do that later once she's got back from the doctors. We've had this issue before (long term health stuff, they're well aware of it) and from what I remember her contract doesn't say anything except for needing to call an hour before the shift starts, which she did.

What was frustrating, and this is just me venting so everyone feel free to ignore this part, is they didn't even bother trying to cover it. Just told her it can't be covered and repeatedly threatened her with calling social services to tell them vulnerable adults were at risk because they have a carer refusing to work. With partner then offering multiple solutions (4 morning calls to cover, 4 other carers out today, she's been made to squeeze multiple calls into her rounds to cover people before but apparently that can't be done for her, even though the senior didn't even try calling them) and them both going in circles for a literal hour that could have been spent by the senior finding solutions. There's an office full of qualified carers, and multiple managers who are also qualified, but social services will be called for at risk patients who are going to be left untended because one carer is quite possibly going to hospital.

It's just an absolutely crap culture we have of calling in sick being some enormous taboo, and it seems companies would rather have a body in work that is incapable of doing their job if it saves them the inconvenience of having to deal with an absence. I've had a manager tell me to basically force a colleague with a D&V virus to come into work once, in food retail, because they didn't want to deal with it on their day off.

And then people wonder why the UK has a productivity problem when workers are treated as completely disposable numbers who's existence must belong to the company at all times.

 

The first half is exactly what she did say in retort. It worked out in the end, and they phoned her back a a few hours later to apologise so that's cool.

Still curious though. This is something that comes up at both of our jobs quite a bit