'Fit notes' launched to get the sick working

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Doctors will instead be ordered to issue "fit notes" listing what tasks patients can perform. Employment advisers will also be sent to work in GP surgeries and a health hotline will be set up for small businesses.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson said: "There was a feeling in society that you should protect people from work and that the best thing to do was to go home and watch daytime TV. If you have a mental health problem I can think of nothing worse. It is now recognised that the worst thing that can happen is to push someone out of work and pretend it is in their best interests."

He said the sick note has remained virtually unchanged since the NHS was created. He added: "It just says you can't work, and has no flexibility whatsoever. We want to make it an electronic fit note to bring it bang up to date."

Last year 172million working days were lost to sickness absence, at a cost of more than £100billion. Today's announcement comes after the national health and work czar Dame Carol Black carried out a review of the health of Britain's workforce.

She said: "This agenda is vitally important in the current economic climate. There are stark economic and social costs if we don't strive to help people be healthy and in work."

Under the new measures a National Centre for Working-age Health and Wellbeing will be set up with co-ordinators employed to advise small businesses.

However, Liberal Democrat shadow health secretary, Norman Lamb said: "We must be wary of moving to a system where doctors find themselves policing the benefits system rather than treating the sick."