An employee keeps calling in sick, and the rest of the team is carrying it.

Ask, do not conclude. Being seen out is not proof that somebody was not ill: plenty of conditions let you sit in a pub garden but not do your job, and a fit note signs you off work, not off the planet. What you can do is treat it as a reason to have a conversation, put what you have been told to them properly, and listen to the answer. If the explanation does not stand up, that becomes a conduct issue and goes through a disciplinary process. Dismissing on a photograph alone is how employers lose these.

Yes. You are entitled to know the reason for an absence and the likely return date, and asking is normal management, not prying. What you cannot do is demand detailed medical information, pressure somebody into disclosing more than they want to, or treat the answer differently depending on who gave it. For the first seven days they self-certify. After that you can ask for a fit note.

Yes, and in most cases you should, because silence in both directions is what lets these situations drift. Keep it proportionate: agreed, reasonably spaced, and about how they are and when they might be back, not about chasing work. Daily calls to somebody signed off with stress are the kind of thing that turns an absence problem into a claim.

They are a written threshold, a number of days or separate occasions in a rolling period, that automatically prompts a formal absence conversation. They are entirely legal and genuinely useful, on two conditions: they are written down and known in advance, and they are applied to everyone identically. You also need to be prepared to adjust them where a disability is involved. A trigger applied to one person and quietly ignored for another is worse than having none.

It is possible, but not quickly and not on the number alone. You would need the pattern formally raised, a fair process with warnings and a real chance to improve, medical evidence where there is any suggestion of an underlying condition, and consideration of adjustments if there is. Dismissing because the total looks high, without that behind you, is the version that ends up at tribunal.

Statutory Sick Pay has its own rules on qualifying days and linked periods, and your own contracts may promise more than the statutory minimum. Check the contract before you decide anything, because withholding pay somebody is contractually entitled to creates a separate problem on top of the absence one.

Treat it carefully and do not assume it is tactical. Absence that begins after a difficult process at work is common, sometimes genuine, sometimes both. Keep the two things separate, continue the process fairly but without unreasonable pressure, and take advice before you push on. This is the pattern most likely to turn into a constructive dismissal argument.