From this week April 2010, doctors can no longer give sick notes.
You have to tell them all your jobs at work. And when you say a job it doesn't sound so difficult to someone else . e.g. "I have to call a helpline to get help with our PCs" doesn't sound too difficult but in practise you have to remain calm while some indian idiot fails to understand a word you say and then attempts to solve a problem of their choosing rather than the real problem.
The doctors tick some boxes and write on a form to say how your employers can amend your jobs so that you can still work while being unable to work. e.g. If you break your back and your job is cleaning cars they can get you one of those skateboard things to lie on while you polish the lower bits of the cars.
If you say you can't do any of your jobs, the doctors then tell you to resign and get a different job, so you still don't get a sick note.
It really does seem goodbye to the sick note.
All the nation's doctors probably just resigned. After all what they signed up for was to look at a few bunions and say 'oh this cream will sort those I hope' or 'see how it goes and come back in three weeks' , not redesigning people's jobs on the spot.
I heard something about that. Not sure about the "the doctors then tell you to resign and get a different job" bit. I'd like to hear just how they worded that.
I laughed at the idea of the fit note though. I can just about see how it works if you say "oh I'm a milkman, delivery driver, shelf filler"
But if its anything less familiar you will have to sit and teach the GP the job so he can work out bits you can do. Since GPs seem to allow about 3 minutes per patient these days that's going to be fun.
GP "so you're a professional ommfoddler?"
Me "I am yes"
GP "and what does that entail?"
Me "oh well I foddle any omms that aren't prefoddled"
GP "err and is that a physical job"
Me "Some might say so"
GP "err how about I put down 'unable to work at all' and I'll see you in a fortnight"
Also what about emotional/stress problems. I know something about the current system that it's replacing and a GP is not interested in evaluating those at the moment. They go by what the patient tells them.
To pick a silly example to make the point. If my job was bolting chairs together and I said I had a panic attack at the sight of a spanner. Who can argue with that? it's not as though there is a proper test for that.
Obviously the broken back is silly as the employers need to employ someone else as well to polish the tops of the cars.
But emotional distress is hard to measure. So if I am posting here and suddenly get Very Upset, I can just stop posting have a cup of tea and you are non the wiser. If I am at work and dealing with other people it becomes a problem.
I agree with merry about the doctors not being job redesigners, but I read about this online and it said doctors have been consulted and are in favour. I guess it is the old story of asking people you know will agree.
And if I had the sort of job where I could teach someone else what I do in 3 minutes I wouldn't be stressed would I?
Also many jobs have terms and conditions where you cannot tell anyone outside the company the details of what you do. So I could only say "I post in forums" and not "I post in whinge and cheer forums and look at pictures of robins" which could be relevant if I had panic attacks on seeing robins.
I did wonder about sensitive jobs which couldn't be explained in detail to a doctor. The whole thing seems poorly thought out.
I suppose the doctor could start from the other end and say "you can do things with your arms, but not things that stress your back/abdomen/left ear, but then someone at the company has to decide if tightening the widgets would stress your back and that is a medical opinion so they are back where they started.
And what's to stop anyone looking up the symptoms of tinnitus and saying it stops them from concentrating? That would do for non-manual work too ..... 
I think Merry is right, this is a recipe for doctor-patient problems.
But I read that a majority of doctors had shown NOT to be in favour of this as it was asking them to become (suddenly, without any training - and within the 5-10 minutes of a standard GP consultation!) fully-fledged occupational advisors, able to advise definitively which jobs/activities any individual could/should/should not be doing!
I hate to sound cynical but it does sound like one of those initiatives that is meant to placate the whingers who think that people with cancer/schizophrenia/suicidal depression (etc) are "unfairly" getting away without working, and claiming benefits...
Or maybe it's to protect businesses from libel claims if someone with a bad finger is asked to lift a teaspoon, and sues them for being asked to do something they shouldn't have? 
Well, I think I will probably get lots of feedback on this as I'm back to my voluntary work (on a mental health helpline) tomorrow... 
In the states, what you are describing is the specialty of an Occupational Medicine Doctor, which is a post graduate specialty every bit as much as Neurosurgery or Oncology.
My brother is an Occupational Medicine Doctor and really knows what the hecque he's talking about, when it comes to dangerous work settings, high tower welding for instance, or which pilots are no longer fit to fly jumbo jets.
If you consider it, it's really not a trivial matter.
It's interesting to note that, according to BBC2's Newsnight last night, the NHS has the highest sickness absentee rate of all the public services. It looks like all that medical expertise means they know better how to get sickies.
One of the government's wheezes to improve NHS efficiency is to reduce absenteeism. Maybe they shouldn't teach NHS staff about medicine and illnesses.... 
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