Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said: “Fit notes are too often a dead end – a piece of paper that tells people they can’t work but does nothing to help them get better.<\/p>\n
“We’re changing that. By bringing employers, the NHS, and patients together we can help people recover faster, stay connected to their jobs, and get the economy firing on all cylinders.”<\/p>\n
Prof Victoria Tzortziou Brown, president of the Royal College of GPs, said “the current system can involve significant administrative work that takes time away from patient care”.<\/p>\n
She added: “However, any reform of the fit\u202fnote\u202fprocess must put the health and wellbeing of patients first, be fully resourced and avoid creating additional workload for general practice.”<\/p>\n
John Foster, from the Confederation of British Industry, which represents businesses, welcomed the pilot, saying the current system “fails employers, workers, and the economy”.<\/p>\n
Tom Pollard, from the mental health charity Mind, said: “Giving people the chance to have detailed conversations about the challenges they face and the support they need is a positive step.<\/p>\n
“However, it’s vitally important that this is a supportive and collaborative process. <\/p>\n
“People with mental health problems must not feel pressured to work when they don’t feel able, or to return to workplaces that are not supporting their mental health.”<\/p>\n
Conservative shadow health secretary Stuart Andrew said it was “good to see Labour finally waking up to fit note reform”.<\/p>\n
“The Conservatives have long argued that too many people are being written off work when they could be supported to recover, stay independent and contribute,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said: “Fit notes are too often a dead end – a piece…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-594546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}