Almost three-quarters of the UK’s human resources professionals believe that transferring responsibility for sick note certification from GPs to employers will be impractical, a new survey has found.
Forty-five percent of those surveyed by Croner, one of the UK’s leading providers of business information and advice, said they believe the responsibility should stay with GPs, despite pilot schemes scheduled later this year which transfer it to company health professionals.
The survey, carried out via Croner’s www.humanresources-centre.net, found that thirty percent said that, though they agreed with the idea in principle, they didn’t think it would work in practice, whilst the remaining twenty-five percent felt it would be a good, workable way to manage workplace sickness more efficiently.
The latest CBI figures show that the total cost of absence to British business was 11.8 billion in 2001, with 176 million working days lost during 2003.
The current sickness certification system has recently come under much scrutiny. Research reported in the British Medical Journal found GPs say they don’t have either the time or the patience to challenge patients and often simply issue sicknotes ’on demand’. Half of the GPs interviewed for this project said they thought their certification role should be removed.
Richard Smith, employment law expert at Croner, which is a division of Wolters Kluwer UK, believes that companies need to begin preparing for playing a more active role in managing workplace sickness.
He says: We all hear about the increasing amount of pressure on a dwindling number of general practitioners, and the pilot schemes planned for 2004 indicate that the Government is looking closely at reforming the sicknote system to help remove some of this pressure.
Workplace sickness levels have, in fact, fallen over recent years, but this is obviously still a key issue in terms of lost productivity, additional costs and staff morale, especially for smaller firms.
Companies need to start thinking about how they would manage the increased responsibility that might come their way in the next couple of years by making sure their own sickness monitoring systems are effective and clearly understood by employees.
Most companies have policies in place which require employees to provide written explanations of any sick days, but the level to which they are adhered and enforced can vary greatly.
Taking subsequent action against any employee who is suspected of taking sick days without good reason will be much harder if procedures haven’t been properly followed and the required information isn’t readily available.
From employees’ point of view, they also need to know the boundaries to which they must adhere in order to provide the appropriate medical information and to qualify for sick pay when they are genuinely ill.
Companies’ sickness policies must be clearly defined and circulated, and employees should be given the opportunity to have any queries answered straight away, so that all parties fully understand what the system entails.
planned sicknote system changes impractical, say HR Professionals
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