Workers who obtained a fit note from their GPs were off work for more than twice as long as those who failed to follow procedure, a study has revealed.
An analysis of 22,086 employee records by absence management services provider, FirstCare, revealed that personnel requesting a fit note were absent from work for an average of 48 days compared with only 20 days for those who did not apply for one.
Although staff are supposed to obtain a ‘Statement of Fitness to Work’ fit note if they are absent from work on medical grounds for more than seven calendar days, many small businesses are unaware of the requirement and so do not enforce it.
James Arquette, a director at FirstCare, said: “Fit notes are doing the opposite of what they were designed for and are causing employees to be off work for longer without reducing the likelihood of repeated absence.”
Fit notes replaced sick notes in April 2010 and were intended to cut the annual £13 billion sickness-related benefits bill by getting people back to work more swiftly. They enable GPs to categorise staff as ‘may be fit for work’ as well as ‘unfit for work’ and were meant to encourage workers with health issues to agree a phased return-to-work with their employer.
Cutting absence
But a key problem with the scheme is that GPs are expected to decide on what a staff member can or cannot do without knowing anything about their job, their workplace or the support services available to them, Arquette said.
Another issue is that doctors lack guidance over how to support phased returns-to-work and, therefore, “erred on the side of caution” when approving sickness absence to ensure that they could not be blamed if something went wrong, he added.
The findings were backed up by a recent ‘Absence Management’ survey jointly undertaken by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and private health insurance provider, Simplyhealth.
Only 11% of those questioned indicated that the fit note had cut absence in their organisation, while a huge 89% felt that GPs were failing to use the measure effectively.
On the plus side, however, some 52% of respondents believed that fit notes had enabled line managers to initiate conversations about absence and health issues with their staff, while 31% felt that they had helped line managers to manage absence more effectively.
