Reform call as sick note sign-offs hit 11m record
THE number signed off work hit a high of 11 million sick notes last year, a damning report has revealed.
It has more than doubled from
5.3 million in 2015-16.
Without urgent reform incapacity and disability benefit spending is set to soar by 49% to £90.9billion, the Policy Exchange report warns.
It is demanding an overhaul of fitness-to-work assessments to cut the UK’s welfare bill.
Healthcare professionals provide a fit note – commonly known as a “sick note” – with their medical opinion on a person’s fitness.
Employees must give their employer one if ill for more than seven days in a row and have taken sick leave.
The think tank says 93% of fit notes are designated “not fit for work”.
It argues it has effectively become a “system of self-certification” in which health professionals have too little time, information or too few options to offer effective support.
Benefits
Around a third of all fit notes are issued for five weeks or longer – and 20% of those in receipt of one this length will not return to work, the study says. For six months, 80% will never go back.
Some 71% of all fit notes issued between April 2021 and December 2023 contained no diagnosis.
Sean Phillips, report lead author, said: “The ‘fit note’ should be reformed to direct people more effectively towards occupational health assessments which can monitor conditions where longer absences have been recommended.
“Too many people – particularly those with mental health conditions – are being signed off for periods of time which may be damaging to their prospects of a return to work.”
Last year, 186 million working days were lost due to sickness or injury.The cost is put at £150billion annually.
The Office for National Statistics says 2.7 million people have long-term sickness and are “economically inactive”, up by a third since 2019.
Pensions Secretary Mel Stride has said Britons must revert to the “old-fashioned belief” that work is good for you.
He said welfare reforms would “break the cycle of people seeing their GP and ending up parked on benefits”.