Jill

I can share your frustration on this one as it appears to happen all to
often.  Much of your decision making rests on the contents of your policies
but these should be based on the fact that employees are paid a reasonable
amount of pay and rations for a reasonable days work.  The large amount of
employment and H&S legislation that we have is - among other things -
designed to prevent organisations unreasonably dismissing employees when
this basic premise is called into question.

A GPs opinion is precisely that - an opinion. Your OHP is also of the
opinion that the employee is fit and as your OHP will know the work and
working environment better than the GP then I believe his opinion will carry
more weight.  This therefore gives you the situation where a reasonably fit
employee is absent from a job they are able to do which means he is in
danger of breaching his contract of employment.  This might be a view you
wish to discuss with the employees GP.

Hope this helps

Lindsey


----- Original Message -----
From: "SURGERY, GBR-Sutton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 8:42 AM
Subject: sickness absence issue


> Dear Members
>
> We currently have an employee who has been off sick  (post op) for the
past
> 6 months.  He has seen our Occupational Physician for a routine review and
> basically he was assessed to be fit for his normal duties.  However his GP
> is not willing to allow him back to work until he has been reviewed by his
> Consultant which is not until August.   We have had similar problems in
the
> past where GPs will not allow return until seen by the Consultant, however
> it could be a matter of months (as in this case) until they can be seen
and
> given the OK to return to work.  I am wondering who is supposed to have
> authority here?  In these sorts of cases waiting to see Consultants for
the
> green light to return to work can be as mentioned a matter of several
months
> and during this time I would say a hell of a lot of Statutory sick pay is
> paid out unnecessaily and this must be a tremendous cost to the
government!
>
> What are your views?
>
> Jill Rossiter
>
>
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> RCN Society of Occupational Health Nursing Conference 29 Nov 2005 to 1 Dec
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Please remove this footer before replying.

RCN Society of Occupational Health Nursing Conference 29 Nov 2005 to 1 Dec 2006:  Call for papers at
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/files/OCC-HEALTH/OH_Conference_2005.pdf

For list archives and documents, go to
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/occ-health.html

For jobs in Occupational Health, go to
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/OHJobs/