Royal Mail has recently revealed that of the 2,900 Fit Notes it has received to date, only 31 of them gave any indication as to what an absent employee may be able to do at work. At the same time Dr Bill Gunnyeon, Chief Medical Adviser to the DWP has admitted that one of the biggest problems employers face is the eligibility of GPs’ handwriting - I’m not joking. All fit notes were supposed to be completed electronically on a new IT system by the end of this year, but according to Dr Bill, this is now highly unlikely.
If they don’t contain any advice and you can’t read them when they do, I can fully understand why a large client has decided to completely ignore them in their rehabilitation process. We’ve got a long way to go to turn Dame Carol Black’s vision into reality.