According to a recent survey by Norwich Union, upto 25% of requests for sick notes were questionable. That means that almost 9m people could be falsely asking their doctor to sign them off sick.
In conjunction with the survey, Norwich Union asked whether workers would consider asking their doctor for a sick note, even if they were not sick. Shockingly, 3m said they would.
Our View
We are sure that the results of this survey will boil the blood of most employers, especially the smaller ones that have received sick notes from staff. Being employers ourselves, we fully understand that employee sickness has to be factored into workloads. But, when employees send in a sick note for a month or two when nothing seemed to be wrong the day before, should the doctor not be questioned?
It is our opinion that doctors give sick notes far too easily and have no regard for the people their signature on that piece of paper will affect. If a patient arrived and said they were feeling under the weather, why would the doctor give a sick note for two weeks, one or two months?
Employers should have the right to question the contents of a sick note if they believe the time allocated off work is excessive for the medical reason stated. Maybe if it was easier for employers to question doctors, employees might not use sick notes so readily.
For those of you that have been truly ill and have submitted sick notes, this article is most definitely not aimed at you!