GP’s should lend a hand to small business leaders looking to combat Britain’s ‘sick note culture’ according to business owners.

The UK Business Barometer, an internet survey run by the University of Nottingham Institute for Enterprise and Innovation (UNIEI), found there was strong support for a change to the way employees are signed off sick by doctors.

Almost two-thirds of respondents to the survey felt it would be better if GPs issues ‘fit notes’ to determine what a person can do, rather than sick notes signing them off work completely. ‘Fit notes’ would give details of the type of tasks that a person was still capable of, despite their illness.

Millions of working days are lost each year due to staff illness and nowhere does this have a bigger impact than on small businesses. A report recently published by Professor Dame Carol Black put the total cost of health to the British economy at £103bn, a figure greater than the annual budget of the NHS.

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