Now Everyone's FIT - (OLE)

More government stupidity

No more Sick Notes

You can’t get a sick note from your GP now.

From 6 April 2010, all you can get is a Statement of Fitness to Work - dubbed a Fit Note - a curiously contradictory name for a document that records that you’re not fit - but certainly in vogue with our present government’s obsession with political correctness and general stupidity. Here at flea, we’re surprised it wasn’t called an “Occupationally Challenged Note”. Of course, the real surprise is that anyone felt it necessary to make a change at all!

Anyways, the Statement of Fitness for Work is a new Medical Statement that GPs will have to issue, replacing the old 'Sick Note'. Apparently it is supposed to focus on what an employee may be able to do rather than what they can’t do!

Of course, in line with the ever-increasing bureaucracy surrounding everything these days, your poor old quack now has to do a lot more than before - and no doubt the procedures operated by employers will also have to change to reflect the more complex content of the new document that your GP will have to fill in.

In the past, your doctor merely needed to confirm whether you were or were not fit for work. But not anymore…... Now the GP will be expected to suggest ways of helping you to get back to work - including strangely what sounds like giving advice to the employer on what should be done by them!. This will mean including in the Fit Note possibilities for you and your employer like:

Phasing of your resumption of work - maybe with reduced hours or days per week initially
Having more flexibility in your working arrangements
Making temporary or longer-term changes to your duties
Making changes in your work environment - or implementing workplace adaptations.

The GP will also have to set out the functional effects of your condition and will be expected to complete sentences like:
“..…may be fit for work taking account of the following advice……'

Of course, without wasting valuable time talking to you about what you do and trying to understand exactly what that is and how you do it - and indeed what is, maybe or isn’t feasible in terms of a change, how the doctor will know sufficient of your job and the implications of his advice on your employment to complete the new form remains rather more than a mystery.

We anticipate there will now be training courses for GPs on how to cope with these new requirements as well as training for employers and their HR people on how their systems and approach should change as a result and how to handle the new situations that will inevitably arise.

What’s certain is that all this will cost money - your money and our money as well as employers’ money. So it’s not just nonsense - it’s expensive nonsense that already has and will continue to divert funds and resources away from treating the sick and into the hands of consultants, training companies and bureaucrats.

Our view - seems like some things never change - and what does is seldom an improvement! Let's hope our next government has more common sense than the one we've suffered under for the past 13 years....

If you want or need to find out more - try here: www.dwp.gov.uk/fitnote

This article was created on Friday, 23rd April 2010. It was last tinkered with on Saturday, 24th April 2010.

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