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New medical statement – consultation response

Issue 34 - February 2010

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The Government’s response to the consultation on the regulations to support the new medical statement has now been published. One hundred and forty seven responses to the consultation were received from a wide range of stakeholders, including the IPP of course. As a result of the views some changes have been made to the proposed new statement and the rules that support it, including;

• removing the option for a doctor to state that their patient is ‘fit for work’;
• changing the wording of the option ‘may be fit for some work’ to ‘may be fit for work taking account of the following advice’;
• reducing the maximum period for which a medical statement can be issued in the first six months of incapacity from six to three months;
• ending the restriction that where a medical statement is based on a written report from another doctor or other healthcare professional, the written report could not be more than one month old.

A sample copy of the revised certificate is included in the consultation response.

Subject to Parliamentary approval, these changes to the medical statement will come into force on 6 April 2010. The regulations required to introduce the new medical statement are available on the Office of Public Sector Information website.

 

Guidance will be made available in advance of the new statement coming into effect on 6 April 2010. Currently, further information on the changes is available through this link.