Sick-Note Britain (PDF)

by Adrian Massey

Dr Adrian Massey has worked at the intersection of medicine and society for decades. He argues compellingly that our hyper-medicalized society has falsely equated sickness with illness, and sickness with unfitness to work–whereas sickness is primarily a social problem requiring social, not medical, solutions.
Sick-Note Britain lays bare Britain’s gross error: when doctors cannot ‘fix’ anxiety or chronic pain, workplace attendance is still treated as a matter for arbitration by our strained primary care service. What is needed is a tailored, employer-employee contractual solution, but obstacles block this approach: excessively complex employment law constraining both sides; an outdated benefits system that overburdens doctors and traumatizes the vulnerable; and a workplace culture that is too inflexible to keep sick employees in work.
This is a blistering condemnation of a sham system that works for nobody, and an urgent call to rethink how we manage sickness–for the sake of our economy, our wellbeing, and our health service.