Hospital staff suspended for on-line shopping

The University Hospital of North Staffordshire has suspended 10 employees who visited holiday, sport and shopping web sites while they should have been working, according to a report from the BBC.

While members of staff are allowed to make personal use of the Internet, the hospital policy is that this must be during their free time, and for limited periods only, the hospital trust told the BBC. "The current investigation relates to breaches of this policy," it added.

The hospital began the investigation, scheduled to take three weeks, after monitoring established that workers were regularly accessing the variety of web sites during working hours.

According to Tom Potbury, employment law specialist with Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.com:

"Excessive personal use of internet and e-mail facilities by employees is commonplace, so staff policies need to be clear about the extent to which they can use these facilities during the working day.

"However, if an employer takes disciplinary action against staff where there is no such policy, or if that policy has not been brought to the employees' attention, the employer is putting themselves at risk of costly unfair dismissal claims."

Reproduced from Out-Law.com, published by the law firm Masons