Sickness certification

Illness less than 7 days

Patients do not require a doctors certificate for the first 7 days  of any illness regardless of the cause of the illness.   Patients can use a 'self certificate'  either SC1 if your are not in employment or self employed  or  a SC2  if you are in employment.  These  can be obatined from your employer,  the local Jobcentre or we may have a limited stock  at reception.

www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/claimforms/sc1_print.pdf

www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/sc2.pdf

Illness more than 7 days duration

A doctor's statement Fit Note is required.  It is a requirement that a doctor has to physically see or examine  a patient for a particular illness in order certifiy sickness or fitness to work.  We are not able to issue certificates if we have never seen you during an  illness and are unable  back-date certificates for periods where you were ill but not  seen by a doctor.

Illness more than 7 days duration after hospital discharge / operation / A&E attendance

In most instances where you have been a hospital inpatient the  ward will provide you with a certificate for the period that you were in hospital  . Certain clinics ( eg Orthopaedics ) can issue a certificate after an injury or operation  while you are attending their clinic.

If you require a certificate from your doctor following discharge from hospital or A&E attendance then we are able to issue a certificate if we have written evidence of your attendance at hospital ( eg. a hospital immediate discharge letter or letter from A&E confirming attendance ). This certificate  can be made out for the first two weeks after discharge without seeing you in person, but any follow on certificates require that the doctor sees the patient in the surgey.

FIT NOTES

The traditional sickness certificate "sick note"   changed on 6 April 2010.  Instead doctors will be issuing fitness certificates, "fit notes".   The fitness certificates  are still used to certify being unable to workdue to illness as before but in addition allow your doctor to make recommendations to employers of alterations to working practices that might allow that person to return to work in some capacity before full health is regained.  Studies have show that the longer a person is off work sick then the less likely they are to ever actually get back to work, are less likely to get another job, are more likely to have continuing ill health and are more likely to suffer from deteriorating mental health.  Further infromation can be found here:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/DG_184645

Private sickness certificates 

The certificates mentioned above are part of a GP Practice's contact to provide NHS services for the Primary Care Trust.  Any other medical certificates or reports will incur a charge as they are not part of your NHS service . Reception can advise of our current  charges.  Some examples are shown below:

• Request for doctor's certification of illness for less than 7 days duration.
• Request for certification of illness from school, college, university or for various educational bursaries.
• Requests for notes to confirm attendance at doctor appointments for employer /school /college