The government’s recent proposal on replacing sick notes by fit notes has met stiff opposition from some quarters, as it allows employers to force employees to come back to work despite not having fully recovered from illness.

Supporting the opposition, Thompsons Solicitors said that the proposed introduction of fit notes is more likely to fail in decreasing the costs borne by industries due to lost hours as well as in decreasing the payments made by employers to workers rendered ill due to poor workplace conditions.

Out of the three categories of workers on leave as mentioned in the proposed new fit note, ‘fit to work’ and ‘not fit to work’ do not pose any problems. But the dispute lies with the category of ‘Maybe fit for some work now’, which advocates phased return of employees to work, with altered hours of work and more modified workplace conditions.

The problem is that some workers are not willing to return, just because employers are unable to provide suitable conditions to enable them to work. Fit notes might not be able to change this scenario, and workers will continue to linger in a situation where they want to return to work but cannot do so in absence of supportive arrangements to be made by employers.

Tom Jones, head of policy at Thompsons, said that it is better to allow the workers to join work in some or the other form instead of keeping them away from work altogether. However, employers can misuse fit notes by forcing sick employees to get back to work, and if they are not able to perform due to their ill health, they can terminate these workers from service. This is problematic for both the business as well as the employees. Jones also believes this scheme has no place for health concerns of employees at all. The CIPD Certificate in Employment Relations, Law and Practice provides a firm foundation in all the areas of HR and employment law. It provides a comprehensive understanding of the law to allow organisation’s to set their own policies and procedures in context.