Every year it is estimated that around 350,000 people leave work
to claim health-related benefits and around 172 million working
days are lost due to sickness absence. The government
believes that early work-focused healthcare and workplace
management can help people stay in work and that a GP's advice
and guidance can be pivotal to an individual's decisions about
whether or not they should return to work.
With this in mind, the government has announced that "sick
notes" are to be replaced with "fit notes", the aim
being to help more people stay in work and/or return to work more
quickly, rather than becoming long-term sick. This is to be
achieved through the "fit note" allowing for doctors to
give advice to employees about staying in work or, if they
can't work as normal, advising on what their employer can do to
help them return to work sooner, such as any changes which could be
made to the employee's work environment or job role. The
idea is to change the focus
