Possible Crackdown on Sickness Certificates

Morglin

As reported on various benefit sites and in the Daily Telegraph recently, the Government is being urged to launch a fresh crackdown on the issues of medical certificates by ordering extra checks before doctors sign patients off work.

Professor Dame Carol Black, the Government's national Director of Health and Work, wants requests for sick notes, which currently go to GPs, instead to be scrutinised by teams of experts who would attempt to speed an employee's return to work.

In a review due to be submitted to ministers in January 2008, Dame Carol will propose the creation of "back to work" teams, based at GP practices, to which patients seeking sick notes would be referred.

The teams, staffed by physiotherapists, nurses, psychologists and employment advisers, would offer services that attempt to get patients back to work as soon as possible, instead of providing them with a sick note on demand.

Dame Carol said: "Too often doctors reach for a sick note when what is needed is some quick therapy, to agree adjustment to their working life, and to get them back to work."

The background behind these proposals were published in a press release issued jointly by the Dept of Work and Pensions, the Dept of Health and the Health & Safety Executive earlier this month.

The review highlights a lack of understanding among healthcare professionals of the benefits of work. A series of initiatives are being progressed to help engage, educate and support GPs and other healthcare professionals. These will help them understand the links between work and health, the long-term consequences of signing patients off sick, and the role they can play in helping their patients remain in or return to work.

The Evidence Review published today shows that:
* Being in the right type of work is good for your health. It improves self esteem, quality of life
and well-being.
* Being out of work is bad for both mind and body. Unemployment progressively damages
health and results in more sickness, disability, mental illness, obesity, use of medication and
medical services and decreased life expectancy.
* When people return to work from unemployment their health improves. Returning to work
from unemployment improves health by as much as unemployment damages it.
* If you have a health condition, being in work can help you get better. Remaining in or
returning quickly to work is beneficial for people with both physical and mental health
problems.
* The positive effects of work do not just benefit the individual. Work also reduces poverty and
health inequalities for the family and the community.
* Although aspects of work can pose a risk to health, far more people gain health benefits from
work than are negatively affected by it. The benefits of work are also greater than the harmful
effects of prolonged sickness absence.
* The positive effects apply to all age groups.


Government press release:

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/mediacentre/pressreleases/2006/sep/cphs040-060906.pdf

Not sure whether this is yet another Labour sound-bite, or whether it will be taken up - we'll soon see in January.

Lin :rolleyes:

stazi

With the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in Oct 08, to replace new claims for Incapacity Benefit and Income Support, a revised PCA medical test is also being introduced. I think (I'm not sure) that a 'new' form of sick note is also being introduced.

This press release was in Sept 06 - not 07.

I don't think that there are enough 'healthcare professionals' in the UK for one to be sat in every GP's practice to question/challenge every sick note issued.

It is a problem in some areas / with some GP's who issue sick notes too easliy.

dmg24

I would love to know how they intend to fund all the 'physiotherapists, nurses, psychologists and employment advisers' to put this into place. Maybe they could put the additional funding into improving the availability of current services - this in itself would surely get people back to work more quickly?

Morglin

dmg24 wrote: »

I would love to know how they intend to fund all the 'physiotherapists, nurses, psychologists and employment advisers' to put this into place. Maybe they could put the additional funding into improving the availability of current services - this in itself would surely get people back to work more quickly?

I think that would be a little too simple............:rolleyes:

Lin

fraoch

I just thought I'd say love Morglin's Daily Prayer, it struck and chord and made me smile.

Morglin

fraoch wrote: »

I just thought I'd say love Morglin's Daily Prayer, it struck and chord and made me smile.

Saying a daily prayer is part of being married............either that, or frequent exclamations of "Oh God".........;)

Lin

Chrysalis

Lin I am glad you noticed this so what do you think? The government is clearly stating they have a goal of reducing sickness regardless if in employment or not. They are going to employ people to take on sick note duties and remove the roles from GPs. What does this mean?

Sort of like DLA and IB medicals patients will have a doctor who has never seen them before deciding if they fit for work or not, the difference is these doctors are going to have a mandate for getting the patient back to work as soon as possible regardless of the consequences and may refuse to issue a sick note when would usually be justified. There is many long term conditions that are not fixeable with quick therapy and not immediatly obvious but people like MPs and employers can simply think someone is skiving off work. I also wonder what the costs will be of employing all this staff to work in surgeries will be simply to see people who are off work sick effectively pulling resources away from standard healthcare. Are GPs offended by the terms they use when they say employing experts as if to say GPs are not experts.

A while back there was proposals to pay GPs to 'not' write sick notes effectively a bribe to refuse signing people off sick maybe the GPs turned this down so now this alternative plan has been drawn up.

Is there any other motive here possible other then to make sick people work?

Increasing sickness levels are a sign of a failing health service and overworked population so by manipulating sick notes they are covering up a problem, I also dont doubt that forcing people to work with bad health makes their health worse not better.

Morglin

I think there are a few factors at work with this.

There has been a media/government drive to make it appear as if ALL incapacity benefit/DLA claimants are reckless scroungers who choose to sit about all day and not work.:rolleyes:

Gordon brown appears to want half the country onto benefits, but he'd sooner pay them as Tax Credits and not as sickness benefits. So, not much money would be saved doing this, but it looks better for government.

There (to be fair) also has been a problem since the 80's (under Thatcher) of too many being put onto sickness benefits, and may remain on it since that time, and are probably incapable of finding a job now.

Medics also add to the fray - some of them think that those with depression/CFS/ME etc., would be better out at work, as it is supposed to be better for them to be kept busy (their words, not mine). Many think Fibromyalgia is an imaginary illness (I don't those who have it, see it that way).

So, that's why they are trying to tighten up on things like that.

You only have to read certain threads on MSE to realise that people are easily influenced by the media, and really do think we only have to ask for DLA, even if just lazy, and cash and "free" cars are ours for the taking lol :rolleyes:

I would say to those who think that, and to government ministers/newspaper reporters, to try claiming sickness benefits, try living on it, and see how it really is before running off at the mouth.

Lin

seven-day-weekend

A GP friend of mine told me some time ago that if someone keeps insisting they have a bad back and you can´t prove otherwise (and who can prove whether you are in pain or not?), then you have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Are these new éxperts´going to be able to do any better?

Chrysalis

its going from a system where you would be trusted given benefit of doubt unless proven otherwise to now proving you have something so rather guilty until proven innocent now instead of innocent until proven guilty.

Lin good comments, I was actually working when my condition hit me so if work is so good at curing illnesses how did I get bad whilst working? I expect a lot of other claimants were alse working when their problems started.