Made a mess with sick notes

[Stressedout0]

Hi all, I’m in a bit of a mess!

I have had increasingly bad anxiety/low mood for a while and about two weeks ago I had enough and called in sick to work. I booked an online GP appt with BUPA to get medication and to be signed off as my NHS GP takes about 4 weeks to get an appointment and obviously I couldn’t wait that long.

The BUPA GP gave me a note for a week and a prescription for propranolol and setraline. He said my employer might insist on an NHS note which I had no idea about before booking the appt and sure enough my employer did want an NHS one.

It took more than a week (10 days after the initial BUPA note was issued) to see the NHS GP. I asked if it could be backdated but the NHS GP has signed me off for two weeks from today.

I’m not really sure what to do now. Essentially that’s 9 days of unauthorised absence? I don’t know if I should ask work if my leave so far could be put down as 5 days self certified and then 4 days of holiday? I’ve never been off sick for this long before!

Thanks

Phone the gp back. They will backdate it for you but the first 7 days will be self cert and then you’d need the sick line from that point. Don’t worry about it. You can evidence you spoke to someone and had a private one and work want it to be nhs. It’s likely an admin error on the gps part that they forgot to start it from your requests date. I hope your feeling better soon

Sorry to hear you're struggling at the moment.

The first 7 days can be self certified and that leaves 2 days to be sorted. I'd call your GP practice reception and explain the situation and ask them to pass a note to the doctor to ask for it to be changed.

It's a royal pain but it'll all come out in the wash so please don't stress too much!

For the benefit of other posters, many employers require a GP fit note. If you think about it, you can have anything you want if you pay for it. Which is what private medicine is. Your may be totally honest and above board, but you are buying your fit note and there is little accountability for the private sector. I am not convinced the NHS is any different, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

I know it isn't relevant here right now, but why does it take 4 weeks to get an appointment? Is there no online service that you could go through -many surgeries have these and callbacks / fit notes can be issued very quickly where needed. I do appreciate it can be hard these days, but there are other routes possible, and you should investigate these (including calling 111 - which can trigger an urgent appointment). You may need to have a route through to the GP in the future, and there are ways through the system if you know them.

You can self certify for the first 7 calendar days so that sorts out some of it at least.

Honestly I would just talk to your manager about it, presumably they knew you were off sick and you didn’t just disappear with limited contact for that time? I would give them the fit note and ask what should be done about the gap.

Don’t use your A/L for this. You were sick and you’ll need your A/L later on. Get back in touch with your NHS GP and they will issue the note you need. I see it took 10 days before, not the 4 weeks you feared. Good luck with your recovery. The sick note will get sorted.

Thanks all, I got it sorted ☺️

I don’t know why it takes 4 weeks, but that’s the way it is, the NHS is a postcode lottery. I tried to make an appointment back in January for the anxiety which was resulting in me being physically sick every day and they wouldn’t give me anything sooner. Then the sickness came back plus panic attacks so I obviously needed time off work asap and thought private would be the best way to go given the state of the NHS. 10 days wait this time was for an ‘urgent’ appt which honestly I think is daft.

I don’t have a manager at work so I’ve done everything through HR. Probably not the best way to go about it but it’s done now.