Courier fined for time off to see doctor dies of diabetes

A delivery driver who was fined £150 for taking the day off to see a doctor about complications from diabetes has died of the disease.

Don Lane, 53, died on Sunday at the Royal Bournemouth hospital.

Lane’s widow, Ruth, told The Guardian that her husband had been unwell for more than a year, but had kept working and cancelled hospital appointments rather than face the penalties DFD levies on uncovered absences.

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“There was a constant threat of a fine,” she said. “They had to deliver the parcels to tight slots and the pressure to get them done was huge.”

DPD classes its delivery drivers as self-employed workers. They are not entitled to holiday or sick pay, and are fined for absences at a rate of £150 a day if they fail to find a colleague to cover their shift.

The Christchurch father of one had already collapsed twice on the job when he sought specialist advice in July for eye problems linked to diabetes.

However, because he could not arrange cover for the appointment, he was fined.

In a letter seen by The Guardian unsuccessfully appealing against the fine, Lane wrote that he had “cancelled so many appointments because I couldn’t make the time to get there that the renal department have stopped treating me”.

“DPD had a duty of care to make sure he got to those appointments, but they failed in it,” Ruth said.

Lane fell into a diabetic coma in September and was taken ill again in late December before his final admission to hospital in January.

In a statement, DPD said they had “got it wrong” by fining Lane in July, and that they were not made aware of his recent illness. “We were shocked and hugely saddened by Don’s death and our thoughts go out to his family and friends at this difficult time,” they said.

Working conditions for self-employed couriers have attracted the ire of employment rights campaigners, including Labour MP and chair of the Commons’ work and pensions committee Frank Field.

In a tweet this morning, Field called Lane’s death “a new low for Britain’s gig economy”.

Last year, Field’s committee heard evidence from “gig economy” employees, including a Hermes courier who said that he stopped receiving work after asking to change shifts in order to take his terminally-ill wife to hospital appointments.

Field said at the time that self-employed couriers often felt “bullied” into working through illness or serious personal problems because of the fragile status of their employment.

The committee’s report, published in April 2017, concluded that: “the apparent freedom companies enjoy to deny workers the rights that come with employee or worker status fails to protect workers from exploitation and poor working conditions”.