[Mo]

Do any of you have views on the governments proposal to abolish the practice of family GP's issuing sick notes?
It is, so the gov't says to reduce the workload of GP's. What will happen is that you will be asked to visit your works doctor if it has one. If it doesn't then your place of work will have to buy in the service from outside.
Seems to me that your employer will be pressing for less and less notes to be issued. Are we to assume that the gov't thinks that doctors are at the moment signing people off who aren't really sick? Am I cynical or is there more to this than meets the eye?

[Lickszz]

Originally posted by "Mo"

Do any of you have views on the governments proposal to abolish the practice of family GP's issuing sick notes?
It is, so the gov't says to reduce the workload of GP's. What will happen is that you will be asked to visit your works doctor if it has one. If it doesn't then your place of work will have to buy in the service from outside.
Seems to me that your employer will be pressing for less and less notes to be issued. Are we to assume that the gov't thinks that doctors are at the moment signing people off who aren't really sick? Am I cynical or is there more to this than meets the eye?

I think it stinks. Doctors are supposed to be inpartial, they are supposed to look after the their patients interests not some companies. When was this proposed and who sumitted this proposal and were there any backers?

[Mo]

Lickszz it was in the paper on Saturday. Apparently sickness absence costs British business £10.7m per year and 40% of small businesses suspect that their employees were malingering when off sick.

The idea is likely to be a part of the new family doctors contract being drawn up at the mo. It is being financed to the tune of £10m by the gov't with a pilot study at Coca-Cola Macclesfield in the autumn.

[Lickszz]

Originally posted by "Mo"

Lickszz it was in the paper on Saturday. Apparently sickness absence costs British business £10.7m per year and 40% of small businesses suspect that their employees were malingering when off sick.

The idea is likely to be a part of the new family doctors contract being drawn up at the mo. It is being financed to the tune of £10m by the gov't with a pilot study at Coca-Cola Macclesfield in the autumn.

I can't ever see this working out. I think the trial will be a total flop and people will be unsatisfied with it.

[Moon Maiden]

I think they are looking in the wrong direction. Why were they "malingering when off sick"?

I think we have to look at work conditions. The company I worked for a few years ago started to have an increase in absence due to sickness shortly after a new manager arrived. Soon after that they lost 10 staff in the space of two weeks through resignations.

Some people are not in a position to just quit their job if there are problems and it may not be as clear cut as my example.

I do not doubt that there are those out there who may wangle a bit more time off though.

As for the GP's, I can see the point to wanting to reduce workload, but for those companies who do not have a company doctor, the expense could still be huge having to 'buy in' the service from elsewhere. Way to go to kill off small businesses.

Moon Maiden

[halevan]

There have alway's been malingerers and alway's will be, but I think that most people are genuine enough, it is only the minority who want to skive.

Mind you I can understand some employee's taking time off work, due to the atrocious condition's they work under. A friend of mine worked in a foundry shoveling dust all day, another one in a grinding shop full of dirt and fumes.

Anyone who does a job in these trades can only look forward to a short life and also suffer illness and disease, being paid a pittance as well ,so I say, good luck to them if they take some time off work.

[Michael_W]

Totally agree Halevan, and furthermore I can testify that people in those 'lousy condition' jobs generally don't get sick pay. I've known people turn up for work with genuine ill health because they would lose money if they went off sick, and on the other hand known people who do get sick pay take time off every time they sneeze !

[halevan]

Yes Michael, you are right some of the worst jobs pay the least wages, I don't know how the employer's fill those kind of vacancies.

They should be compelled by law to protect their workers
but will never do it voluntary because doing so would cost them money, and sadly it has always been this way.

[NicP]

Hi all,
I'm a journalist, and before you all run and hide, I'm doing some research for an article on this sick notes plan for the Guardian's Jobs & Money section.
I was trawling the web and came across some of your comments on this site, which I felt made interesting reading, as they rather backed up some of my own suspicious about the motives behind this move.
Basically I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts and views on this, particularly if you're an employer, employee, company doctor or occupational health nurse, GP or HR professional. It's particularly interesting, of course, that a Macclesfield business is going to be one of the first to do this.
If you want to post up stuff for me to read that's fine, of course, but I'd also be interested in speaking to people directly and using their thoughts in my article, either anonymously or attributed, whichever they were more comfortable with. My email address for anyone who wants to get in touch is nicpaton@hotmail.com.
I'm putting the article together between now (Thursday October 2) and the end of next week, so any thoughts before then would be gratefully received.
If you want to check I'm genuine, if you go into the Guardian's website (guardian.co.uk) and type in my name it'll bring up some of the previous features I've done for the paper.
Thanks for your time,
Yours
Nic Paton