I’ve thought this for a long time. If an employer or the government wants someone assessed by a dr or a certificate from a dr then they should provide an appropriate dr. If someone has had a major op then why do you actually need a dr to say they’ll need 6 weeks to recover?
“As part of a new drive to overhaul the system, Sunak will say one plank of the reforms will be testing whether responsibility for issuing sicknotes should be shifted from “overstretched” GPs to “specialist work and health professionals who have the dedicated time to provide an objective assessment of someone’s ability to work and the tailored support they need to do so”. in addition to all those who can already? Does he actually know what the law is? Still eh, more work for his family’s business.
Step one: deliberately defund the NHS, driving up pressure on GPs
Step two: Strip all community support for mental health and physical rehab
Step three: botch your management of a global pandemic, adding further, lasting systemic stress
Step four: reconstruct the social welfare system to punish instead of support and to abandon those genuinely unable to work, thus leading to a huge problem of rising absence from work and subsequent hit to national productivity, as people lie on the scrap heap instead of being helped back to work
Step five: fix all of the above by... Handing the power to sign sick people off to minimum wage serco slaves.
More genius from the moderate-at-heart sunak. Thanks again to rof's moderate Tories!
The reason this wouldn’t “work” even from their perspective is that anyone doing the assessment has to be a healthcare professional and anyone who is has an obligation to act in the best interests of their patient (i.e. the workshy employee in the Tory’s eyes). As a result the assessment will always favour the employee.
Basically, this all boils down to whether you believe
(1) there has been a vast increase in the number of people who can’t work over the past five years
And, even if you do
(2) that (if you are a taxpayer) you’re willing to pay for it. Of course as fewer and fewer actually pay any taxes, the road to collapse is already established
And besides as I say, it is very difficult for ‘your’ gp to tell you to pull yourself together. If it wasn’t your usual gp then they are less likely to have those qualms
the problem you purport to identify - mass malingering - does not actually exist
the issue is the very widespread extent of poor health, due to tory neglect
mental health is a very serious issue and a clearly identifiable medical issue which should only be assessed by a qualified professional ie the kind of person tories hate. And any employee who doesn’t want to face liability will see it that way too.
There quite clearly is a major problem with malingering, but I don't think this is good policy. Yes, it will take pressure off the GPs, but what about in the cases where the sickness is genuine (there will always be some)? Some random doc is not going to be able to assess the patient in the same way his/her own GP can.
Back of the fag packet policy. Not in the best interests of P.
Basically, this all boils down to whether you believe
(1) there has been a vast increase in the number of people who can’t work over the past five years
And, even if you do
(2) that (if you are a taxpayer) you’re willing to pay for it. Of course as fewer and fewer actually pay any taxes, the road to collapse is already established
Not providing a properly supportive and functioning welfare system costs us all more in the long run
just another tory thing that’s never gonna happen, that risky’s tugged himself to a semi over
your guys are out of time
labour are going to take a fifteen thousand west megamadge, rule for twenty centuries, remake britain from the ground up and institute a human right to malinger
Employer’s relationship is with OH providing company. They contract with Dr. Dr unlikely to be employed by OH company, but providing services to them to assess employer’s employees. Dr has no duties to employer.
It’s almost impossible to pin Drs down on specific questions you ask and they inevitably go off piste in the interests of their patient, which is understandable.
Some large employers try to bypass this by having their own employed doctors, but there are massive downsides to that too.
Whereas normally I would agree with you with Labour supporting malingerers laz, I actually think in this case the issue is so severe even sir starmr will have to take some action
The point is that the patient simply has to say to whoever that they have symptoms of stress which they feel are related to work and that gets them signed off. That person could be a milkman if they’re on the list of prescribed professionals. The point obvs comes where that person’s opinion is challenged because of what follows from the employee being off sick. You’d still need a real doctor to give an opinion. And that’s no different from now, because a GP’s three word fit note is not determinative as to the employee’s disability, and an OH report will rarely say anything remotely unequivocal.
Like every other Work Experience policy this is ill-thought out but more importantly simply wrong on its face.
The main problem is an overstretched NHS and often unhealthy population. Saw a chart the other day showing non work due to ill health rising quite steeply in 90s, then falling steadily towards late 2010s. but it had started to rise again before the pandemic - then been totally supercharged through and after the pandemic. This suggests to me the primary cause is NHS capacity.
But I think 'mass malingering' is also playing a part. Its not deliberate conscious malingering. But across a population if work becomes more demanding and stressful (which is has), but is paid increasingly less (which is also the case) amidst declining public services and private enterprises effectively outsourcing much admin/hassle to their customers (all of which demands more effort, headspace and stress) - then its seems to me self evident that at the margins more people are going to find it all too much or no longer worth the candle - and consciously or not - exploit or accept opportunities to remove themselves from the workforce. I am fairly sure that this is a big component of our mental health crisis.
The answer is simple. Reverse the 'less for more agenda'. Pay people more for less. At the moment the incentives are all wrong. People are all paid less so they are trying to do less as its become their only way to shift the terms of trade in their favour. This has in turn totally destroyed workplace cultures.
Pay people more. Its that simple. The problem is the state is broke and also needs to renew its infrastructure and possibly its armed forces. So to pay people more we need to cut back elsewhere - and the only place left now is unfunded and unsustainable pensions. We need deficit spending on investment. but deficit spending on unfunded welfare, particularly pensions, is not an investment and has had deleterious effect on working age people.
This - and the need to massively reduce costs by liberalising planning obviously - is the unpleasant reality. If the nation needs to renew it needs to accept that the state cannot avoid or fix all pensioner poverty.
It’s not just that the state is broke. It’s that this country is hopelessly uncompetitive. You can’t pay people more for being crap. Brexit obvs has made this a lot worse and it’s not finished yet. The simple reality about Britain is it’s nowhere near as well off as it thinks it is, and that it’s not because the ruling classes have the wealth. Chickens home to roost.
A whole cadre of young people have been taught that they are ‘victims’ and that if they ‘feel bad’ that is the same as having a mental health disability.
I hate to sound defeatist but the job market at the moment is pretty fvcking brutal even for fully fledged and qualified pros who have never put a foot wrong in their lives and followed all the advice and jumped all the hoops. And if I "tried to get a job in Tesco" (as the meme advice says) pretty sure I wouldn't hear back due to the many applicants attracted to such jobs in times like these
Pretty sure the average employer isn't going to be falling over themselves to offer roles to the type of people this is targeting, so in all likelihood they will just move from one type of benefit to another. I also tend to think this culture emerged as a result of there being essentially bugger all in the way of jobs and opportunity in the first place in large swathes of the UK
health is getting worse and health services can't be accessed
instead of saying "hey maybe we need to improve health and health services" they say "yeah let's just prevent improvements and panic the already panicked"
do they just want the sick to die?
I fcking loathe these stupid undeservingly wealthy fckers
It does feel like they're just doing the same old policy they've done for 14 years and presenting it as somehow novel
I'm not quite sure what new vote they could possibly be tapping into. David Cameron did it in 2010, it didn't lead to an economic miracle then wierdly but there were plenty of awful stories about the news about where they got it badly wrong and stressed out people on the verge of death to the extent that they died, etc, disgusting even plenty of normally more conservative minded people in the process
Gaga I suspect your application to Tesco would stand out as being literate and numerate.
It was 15 years ago but I still remember being amazed in a Job Centre back to work session after six months out of work that they were having to teach people where to look for job adverts and how to apply for jobs as these are simple life skills that should be covered at school.
I'm reminded of Jez' interview for the pool cleaning job
"What's a novel?"
I have to say if I could do it for the same money as my current role I'd happily go back to my old summer job as a petrol station cashier. I fvcking hate offices (admittedly wfh hybrid reduces this) and corporate life and the thought that this is what I have to do for the next 20 years depresses me every day
If the Tories win the general election, unspecified "specialist work and health professionals" would be given the job of issuing sick notes in England.
I assume this will be the same private companies that were telling visibly disabled people there was nothing wrong with them a few years ago?
Seriously, reading what Sunak is saying .. it's so 19th century and we're not far off their next policy being to send children down the mines again, lazy little bastards, they've got to earn their keep!
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I’ve thought this for a long time. If an employer or the government wants someone assessed by a dr or a certificate from a dr then they should provide an appropriate dr. If someone has had a major op then why do you actually need a dr to say they’ll need 6 weeks to recover?
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It’s a win win. Your own gp not under ‘pressure’ to give a sick note and frees up a load of gp appts for non ‘sick note’ purposes
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Absolute state of this already
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“As part of a new drive to overhaul the system, Sunak will say one plank of the reforms will be testing whether responsibility for issuing sicknotes should be shifted from “overstretched” GPs to “specialist work and health professionals who have the dedicated time to provide an objective assessment of someone’s ability to work and the tailored support they need to do so”. in addition to all those who can already? Does he actually know what the law is? Still eh, more work for his family’s business.
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It’s absolutely the right and proper thing.
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If you end up unable to work for health reasons, crypto, will you just nobly quit on the spot?
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Is this going to be outsourced to the same outfit that DWP uses to say that unconscious people are fit to work?
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none of this will ever get enacted
these doss khunts won’t pass a single further item of legislation, including their smoking ban thing
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Step one: deliberately defund the NHS, driving up pressure on GPs
Step two: Strip all community support for mental health and physical rehab
Step three: botch your management of a global pandemic, adding further, lasting systemic stress
Step four: reconstruct the social welfare system to punish instead of support and to abandon those genuinely unable to work, thus leading to a huge problem of rising absence from work and subsequent hit to national productivity, as people lie on the scrap heap instead of being helped back to work
Step five: fix all of the above by... Handing the power to sign sick people off to minimum wage serco slaves.
More genius from the moderate-at-heart sunak. Thanks again to rof's moderate Tories!
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1
The reason this wouldn’t “work” even from their perspective is that anyone doing the assessment has to be a healthcare professional and anyone who is has an obligation to act in the best interests of their patient (i.e. the workshy employee in the Tory’s eyes). As a result the assessment will always favour the employee.
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No such requirement if they’re not medical doctors, face
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Basically, this all boils down to whether you believe
(1) there has been a vast increase in the number of people who can’t work over the past five years
And, even if you do
(2) that (if you are a taxpayer) you’re willing to pay for it.
Of course as fewer and fewer actually pay any taxes, the road to collapse is already established
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1
If they’re not medical doctors they have no business assessing someone’s health, and wouldn’t use them as a result as a responsible employer
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‘Mental health’ is certainly not an exact medical science and where the explosion in claims has come from
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And besides as I say, it is very difficult for ‘your’ gp to tell you to pull yourself together. If it wasn’t your usual gp then they are less likely to have those qualms
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the problem you purport to identify - mass malingering - does not actually exist
the issue is the very widespread extent of poor health, due to tory neglect
mental health is a very serious issue and a clearly identifiable medical issue which should only be assessed by a qualified professional ie the kind of person tories hate. And any employee who doesn’t want to face liability will see it that way too.
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Face
While there’s always a DoC to the pt, if the Dr is instructed by the pt’s employer then isn’t there a DoC to the employer?
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There quite clearly is a major problem with malingering, but I don't think this is good policy. Yes, it will take pressure off the GPs, but what about in the cases where the sickness is genuine (there will always be some)? Some random doc is not going to be able to assess the patient in the same way his/her own GP can.
Back of the fag packet policy. Not in the best interests of P.
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lol you’re a prime example laz
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To paraphrase Blackstone, it is better to allow ten healthy men to skive off than one sick man go back to work.
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Not providing a properly supportive and functioning welfare system costs us all more in the long run
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just another tory thing that’s never gonna happen, that risky’s tugged himself to a semi over
your guys are out of time
labour are going to take a fifteen thousand west megamadge, rule for twenty centuries, remake britain from the ground up and institute a human right to malinger
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"a human right to malinger"
Now that would get my vote, readers!
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Employer’s relationship is with OH providing company. They contract with Dr. Dr unlikely to be employed by OH company, but providing services to them to assess employer’s employees. Dr has no duties to employer.
It’s almost impossible to pin Drs down on specific questions you ask and they inevitably go off piste in the interests of their patient, which is understandable.
Some large employers try to bypass this by having their own employed doctors, but there are massive downsides to that too.
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Whereas normally I would agree with you with Labour supporting malingerers laz, I actually think in this case the issue is so severe even sir starmr will have to take some action
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Kimmy, more money than EVER before is spent on welfare. How much more do you want?
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Less of it to go to Tory donor Capita and Serco shareholders, and more of it to help people who need help
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mental health is a very serious issue and a clearly identifiable medical issue which should only be assessed by a qualified professional
In other words not your jack of all trades GP.
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His name is Sir Keir.
Do they not teach this sort of thing in schools?
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The point is that the patient simply has to say to whoever that they have symptoms of stress which they feel are related to work and that gets them signed off. That person could be a milkman if they’re on the list of prescribed professionals. The point obvs comes where that person’s opinion is challenged because of what follows from the employee being off sick. You’d still need a real doctor to give an opinion. And that’s no different from now, because a GP’s three word fit note is not determinative as to the employee’s disability, and an OH report will rarely say anything remotely unequivocal.
Like every other Work Experience policy this is ill-thought out but more importantly simply wrong on its face.
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0
The main problem is an overstretched NHS and often unhealthy population. Saw a chart the other day showing non work due to ill health rising quite steeply in 90s, then falling steadily towards late 2010s. but it had started to rise again before the pandemic - then been totally supercharged through and after the pandemic. This suggests to me the primary cause is NHS capacity.
But I think 'mass malingering' is also playing a part. Its not deliberate conscious malingering. But across a population if work becomes more demanding and stressful (which is has), but is paid increasingly less (which is also the case) amidst declining public services and private enterprises effectively outsourcing much admin/hassle to their customers (all of which demands more effort, headspace and stress) - then its seems to me self evident that at the margins more people are going to find it all too much or no longer worth the candle - and consciously or not - exploit or accept opportunities to remove themselves from the workforce. I am fairly sure that this is a big component of our mental health crisis.
The answer is simple. Reverse the 'less for more agenda'. Pay people more for less. At the moment the incentives are all wrong. People are all paid less so they are trying to do less as its become their only way to shift the terms of trade in their favour. This has in turn totally destroyed workplace cultures.
Pay people more. Its that simple. The problem is the state is broke and also needs to renew its infrastructure and possibly its armed forces. So to pay people more we need to cut back elsewhere - and the only place left now is unfunded and unsustainable pensions. We need deficit spending on investment. but deficit spending on unfunded welfare, particularly pensions, is not an investment and has had deleterious effect on working age people.
This - and the need to massively reduce costs by liberalising planning obviously - is the unpleasant reality. If the nation needs to renew it needs to accept that the state cannot avoid or fix all pensioner poverty.
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Absolute state of dalek’s 08.25 and 08.26, jointly and severally.
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Isn't this already the method in use for people not working, in which case this aligns the fitness to work process for both employed and unemployed.
Whether the process is any good or not is a separate question, however a two tier system based on your employment status is unfair.
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It’s not just that the state is broke. It’s that this country is hopelessly uncompetitive. You can’t pay people more for being crap. Brexit obvs has made this a lot worse and it’s not finished yet. The simple reality about Britain is it’s nowhere near as well off as it thinks it is, and that it’s not because the ruling classes have the wealth. Chickens home to roost.
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A whole cadre of young people have been taught that they are ‘victims’ and that if they ‘feel bad’ that is the same as having a mental health disability.
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Equally as I say it is rational to subsist on benefits if work doesn’t pay.
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I hate to sound defeatist but the job market at the moment is pretty fvcking brutal even for fully fledged and qualified pros who have never put a foot wrong in their lives and followed all the advice and jumped all the hoops. And if I "tried to get a job in Tesco" (as the meme advice says) pretty sure I wouldn't hear back due to the many applicants attracted to such jobs in times like these
Pretty sure the average employer isn't going to be falling over themselves to offer roles to the type of people this is targeting, so in all likelihood they will just move from one type of benefit to another. I also tend to think this culture emerged as a result of there being essentially bugger all in the way of jobs and opportunity in the first place in large swathes of the UK
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health is getting worse and health services can't be accessed
instead of saying "hey maybe we need to improve health and health services" they say "yeah let's just prevent improvements and panic the already panicked"
do they just want the sick to die?
I fcking loathe these stupid undeservingly wealthy fckers
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‘If work doesn’t pay’
If food can’t be bought
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And the point Ricky is that if you tell the doc you feel really bad they will have to say you are genuinely ill
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It does feel like they're just doing the same old policy they've done for 14 years and presenting it as somehow novel
I'm not quite sure what new vote they could possibly be tapping into. David Cameron did it in 2010, it didn't lead to an economic miracle then wierdly but there were plenty of awful stories about the news about where they got it badly wrong and stressed out people on the verge of death to the extent that they died, etc, disgusting even plenty of normally more conservative minded people in the process
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Gaga I suspect your application to Tesco would stand out as being literate and numerate.
It was 15 years ago but I still remember being amazed in a Job Centre back to work session after six months out of work that they were having to teach people where to look for job adverts and how to apply for jobs as these are simple life skills that should be covered at school.
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Burn it all down….
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The issue in the UK workforce is long-term disability, not sickness rates.
I don't know if this policy is good or bad on the specific issue of signing people off sick, but I do know that the issue is a complete irrelevance.
It's like Rwanda over again - just idiotic performative shit that's a complete distraction from the real problem.
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SS they'd see my CV and see me as a piss taker
I'm reminded of Jez' interview for the pool cleaning job
"What's a novel?"
I have to say if I could do it for the same money as my current role I'd happily go back to my old summer job as a petrol station cashier. I fvcking hate offices (admittedly wfh hybrid reduces this) and corporate life and the thought that this is what I have to do for the next 20 years depresses me every day
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MALINGERERS!!
SHIRKERS!!
UNDESERVING POOR!!
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WE NEED TO OUTSOURCE SICK NOTES TO A CONSERVATIVE DONOR!!
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I assume this will be the same private companies that were telling visibly disabled people there was nothing wrong with them a few years ago?
Seriously, reading what Sunak is saying .. it's so 19th century and we're not far off their next policy being to send children down the mines again, lazy little bastards, they've got to earn their keep!
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Bring back national service.
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Soz.
Bring back national health service
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Only the children of poors, Eddie.
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Certainly more ‘kids’ should be working than going to university
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