Employers who ask staff to go to their GPs and get sick notes before they
have been off work for seven days are wasting 2.4 million GP appointments a
year, a study has concluded.
The report by the Cabinet Office’s Regulatory Impact Unit found employers
often wasted GPs’ time by not using self-certification for periods of less than
seven days.
The report, Making a Difference: Reducing the Burden on General
Practitioners, recommended businesses use procedures such as ‘return to work’
interviews to support self-certification.
Employers needed to contemplate referring work absentees to occupational
health specialists following recurrent periods of illness, it added. "This
may help to give a more accurate picture of an employee’s health to assist in
sickness absence management."
Organisations also had to consider whether it was "absolutely
necessary" for an employee to see a GP for medical information.
Doctors, meanwhile, have suggested that workers should be allowed to call in
sick for a month before being required to produce a doctor’s note.
GPs complain the seven-day rule creates unnecessary bureaucracy and workload
on doctors and helps neither patients nor employers.
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The idea was mooted by Dr Susan Robson, chairman of the British Medical
Association’s occupational health committee, at the association’s annual
representative meeting in July.
