I’ve managed teams for a long time with all sorts of long term sickness
first thing is you will need to see a GP anyway. The GP is likely to only sign you off for 2 weeks at a time, and will only do this if they feel it is a legitimate case of stress symptoms or whatever medical condition they think it is likely to be. Almost certainly they will then talk to you about getting help for your mental well-being- either a course of antidepressants, getting you on list for counselling , or regular exercise in terms of walking . They’ll talk to you about reasons for the stress, as in itself it’s not an illness as such, but a symptom, and what you can do to get support you need. You need to be up front and truthful . The bottom line is if youfeel you can’t cope you need to address anyway, otherwise you’ll end up dropping out of working entirely
you also need to know that general medical guidance has long been the sooner people go back into the normal daily routines like work, the better. Signing someone off for 6 months increases the likelihood of them never being able to deal with their previous life. It is all about how NHS support you in developing mental resilience
The Gp may put initial 2 weeks down to something else if you express concerns. But they probably won’t. Sick notes (or wellness notes as they’re now referred to) are legal documents - so whatever is diagnosis will normally go down
you submit this to work. BUT the cause of your illness is medically confidential so would normally not be sent to your manager unless small company. More likely to HR or a subcontracted out service. No one will do anything with it other than set up claim for sick leave at that stage - UNLESS you have a history of absenteeism. Or unless it specifically puts down a work related cause.
once you then go back to GP for an extension, your company may well ask you to talk to an occupational health person or a GP or their choosing to do an independent assessment of your health and reason for absence. The longer you are signed off (in normally 2 week extensions) the more likely that will become. You I’ll be asked if you are willing to have the assessment shared with HR and your line manager. HR and your line manager can ask spepcifc question for the assessor to ask you.
normally, even where stress or mental health issues are involved, people agree that this info can be shared to a certain degree with management. If for instance, stress is not caused by work but another factor - management will be told it is not work related stress but not the cause of the stress typically.
The assessment will also be looking carefully at how you are “helping yourself”: are you in queue for therapy (can you go private maybe?), are you taking meds, are you finding solutions to ease your stress like getting home help etc etc.
they’ll also be talking to you about reasonable adjustments. In most reputable companies they’ll want to try to get you back asap but with reduced hours over phased return.
if work is a cause of stress, or contributing factor, then HSE law means company must do risk assessment. That is why they want to know. If they don’t , and they don’t do risk assessment it can all get very messy legally for both of you.
most companies do not look kindly on people who do not agree to a independent assessment when they’re claiming sock leave pay. It send the spidery senses into full alert as why would you not cooperate if a legitimate illness? Similarly not giving consent to share the basic medical diagnosis with HR tends to be a bit frowned on…again given it’s not going to be passed on or kept why the concerns?
being signed off work for 6 months because that’s how long your sick pay lasts, is not a solution, OP. No GP is going to sign you off for that in one, two or even 3 hits. No company is going to agree to paying that without wanting to do their own assessment because of what it costs them. And, most importantly it will NOT solve your issues. People being signed off for 6months, or even a full month in one hit, is usually reserved for where there is a known physical condition that has a known recovery time. As stress is a symptom of something else, that’s going to make it even more difficult to predict, it will entirely depend on causes, treatments and circumstances.
You have specific issue that are causing you stress. You are overloaded, and you MUST to reduce your load. You need to strictly figure out what you personally cannot delegate, and then delegate very thing else or just stop it. You can do this for 1 month and see how you get on. I think seeing GP and talking through how you feel and maybe be signed off for 2 weeks may just be able to get you some respite mentally, and fix the underlying issues. But there aren’t magic fairies that’ll fix this…and stopping work on extended sick leave won’t fix it either. You could make your overall mental health worse in fact.
You have to do something to change what you can control.