Onus in getting sick staff back to work shifting to bosses says BMA

The move will require GPs to detail the duties workers can carry out as part of a bid to reduce the billions of pounds lost to the economy because of ill-health.

Abandoning the current system, which has not changed since the NHS was created in 1948, should mean employers will have to accommodate those who can still perform parts of their jobs, the British Medical Association (BMA) said.

Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the BMA's GPs committee, welcomed the regulations which come into force on Tuesday. "Being in work is good for people's health and wellbeing and it's for that reason the BMA is pleased that the sick note system has finally been overhauled," he said.

"It should reduce the number of forms used and will provide a better way for a GP to give advice about a patient to their employer.

"Most importantly, from today the responsibility will be on employers to act. If a GP decides their patient is capable of some form of work, for example if they've got back pain and they should temporarily avoid elements of their normal job, then it will be down to the employer to be flexible enough to accommodate them."

And he said bosses also had a responsibility to provide "adequate" occupational health services, adding: "The Government must encourage them to provide that if the overall plan to help more people back to work is to be truly effective."

The traditional sick note requires a GP to decide whether a patient should or should not work and how much time they should take off.

The revised fit note will allow them to indicate that an individual may be "fit for some work" and will allow doctors to provide advice about the impact of an individual's health condition.

Ministers have said the package, which will cost 10m over ten years, would support disabled people, or those who became ill, to return to or stay in work by helping them manage their condition and get help to keep their jobs.

The move was designed to reduce the 172 million working days lost to sickness absence each year. It is aimed at benefiting the economy by about 240m over the next decade.

But unions have warned that handing someone a list of tasks they could perform while ill would not help them get back to full fitness.

The BMA said more needed to be done to ensure employers have enough information about the changes and called for a publicity campaign to raise awareness.

Dr Buckman added: "Many may not realise, for example, there's no need to insist that an employee sees their GP simply to get signed back to work; in most cases that is not necessary."

And he warned GPs against "making comments they are not qualified to make" because about the patient's working conditions as they do not have specialist knowledge of workplace hazards.