There is never a charge from a doctor for providing a fit note if you're off sick from work for more than 7 days. For sickness of 7 days or less, your GP practice may charge you to provide a private medical certificate. For example, some employers may request medical evidence from employees who repeatedly take time off sick, even if each time they're off work it's for 7 days or less.
A fit note cannot be used for this purpose and a doctor may charge to issue a private certificate. Page last reviewed: 17 October Next review due: 17 October Home Common health questions Caring, carers and long-term conditions Back to Caring, carers and long-term conditions. When do I need a fit note? More than 7 days off sick If you're off work sick for more than 7 days, your employer will usually ask for a fit note or Statement of Fitness for Work from a GP or hospital doctor.
Your employer should, however, go to some lengths to find out about your current medical position, which would usually involve consultation with your medical advisers and possibly a referral to your employers own occupational health therapists or medical experts. Indeed, employers will often reserve the right in your contract of employment for their medical experts to be able to provide a second opinion on the state of your health. Whether or not such a right is reserved, you could be considered to be acting unreasonably if you refuse to agree to such a request although your employer will be in a stronger position where there is a contractual right reserved.
You may especially find that you are asked to attend an examination by occupational health professionals where you are on long term sick leave. Any occupational health report would usually cover the diagnosis, likely prognosis, treatment and timescale for any return to work, as well as detailing the duties you may be able to perform.
The report should also give guidance on any reasonable adjustments to working arrangements that could be made to assist you. Your employer can then make an assessment of your fitness for work. You should take legal advice if you do not agree with the assessment.
If your employer can show that it has taken all necessary and reasonable steps to ascertain the state of your health together with future prognosis, then they are more likely to be seen as acting reasonably should a decision be ultimately made to dismiss you on the grounds of ill health. Where your sickness amounts to persistent short absences by unconnected minor ailments, you should ideally be told what level of attendance you are expected to attain, and that dismissal may follow if there is no sufficient improvement.
Your employer should be careful to adhere to the correct disciplinary procedures such as prior formal warnings as an Employment Tribunal could otherwise well find that a dismissal is unfair on procedural grounds.
Quite often, such an illness amounts to stress and anxiety due to pressure of work , or bullying and harassment by your employer. If your sickness amounts to a disability under the Equality Act, you may have a claim for disability discrimination. Please click here to access the disability discrimination page. If your employer has such a policy in place which has been drawn to your attention, you will be in a weaker position if you do not adhere to it.
Note: Your employer should have regard to the duty to make reasonable adjustments when issuing disciplinary warnings for sickness absence where you have a disability. A blanket absence management policy, under which all employees both disabled and non-disabled are treated equally is therefore capable of placing you as a disabled employee at a substantial disadvantage.
This means your employer may have to extend the time in which disciplinary action can be taken under its attendance management policy, and have particular regard to your periods of sickness absence. It has been held that a term must be implied into your contract of employment in these circumstances, that you cannot be dismissed for incapacity reasons where you have a contractual right to receive disability or private health insurance benefits from your employer.
This applies even if your contract of employment had a termination clause which expressly reserved the right to terminate for incapacity. If you return to work part- time after a period of absence of less than 12 months, you are entitled to the same pay and benefits that applied to your full-time job on a pro-rata basis.
This means that, apart from making pro-rata reductions in accordance with the number of hours worked, your employer cannot change your pay or other contractual benefits to your detriment just because you are now working part time. Yes, you should receive SSP for the days that you are sick in the normal way. Any day for which SSP is paid will count towards your maximum entitlement of 28 weeks. Yes, it is possible that you can be medically unfit for work one under one contract, while still capable of work under another contract.
This is on the assumption that there is no overlap in the hours of 2 roles so that you are not being paid twice for the same hours. If the 2 roles are similar in nature, however, you may have difficulty explaining the inconsistency.
Also bear in mind that your contract of employment may state that you cannot work for a second employer without consent. If you become sick during your holiday leave, you are entitled to rearrange your holiday for another date later in the year. In practice this means that your employer will paying you sick pay rather than holiday pay for the period during which you were ill. You will still need to follow normal sickness absence procedures, for example, reporting to your line manager or obtaining medical evidence of their illness, otherwise you may not qualify for company sick pay.
You cannot be forced to take holiday while you are sick. This includes where you become ill during a holiday. Yes, you can. Sick leave and holiday leave have different functions — the former is to recover from illness, and the latter is for rest, relaxation and leisure. Accordingly, those on sick leave should still be entitled to accrue holiday.
This follows a ruling from the European Court of Justice. You can find out more or opt-out from some cookies. You could eventually lose your job. If your employer refuses to pay your SSP because of any of these reasons, you can take steps to get paid. You can contact your nearest Citizens Advice for help.
Contact your nearest Citizens Advice if you need help. Relay UK - if you can't hear or speak on the phone, you can type what you want to say: then You can use Relay UK with an app or a textphone.
Calls can cost up to 12p a minute from landlines, and between 3p and 45p a minute from mobiles. This will usually be because your employer needs it for their insurance.
This could affect your pay so you need to discuss it with your employer. Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to footer. Top links Housing benefit.
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