Policy change means fit notes may be issued to patients by pharmacists

New legislation coming into effect on July 1st 2022 means that pharmacists in specific settings, nurses, occupational therapists, and physiotherapists are able to write and administer fit notes to patients when they have been out of work for seven days or more. This change comes after discussion within the Government to reduce workload for GPs. Specifically, pharmacists who work in general practices or hospitals are able to issue fit notes, where they will be able to fully assess a patient’s health and fitness for work, while community pharmacists will not be permitted to issue fit notes.
This change comes after lobbying from current health secretary, Sajid Javid, with support from primary care minister Maria Caulfield, with the end goal of freeing up an additional 50 million appointments annually in NHS general practices by 2024.

“Fit notes should only be issued following a full assessment of a patient’s fitness for work, therefore would be an unsuitable service to be provided ‘over the counter’.”
-Department for Work and Pensions

Concerns around next steps in enabling community pharmacists to provide fit notes, or “Med3”, include access to patient medical records, facilities for assessing the health of the patient, and provision of adequate resources and staff to take on the additional workload. Discussions are also taking place around how to provide health resource access information to the general public, so that patients know who to see for what.
This policy change highlights the need for shifts in responsibilities within the multi-disciplinary team and the redistribution of resources so that occupation and community healthcare can be better provided to patients, and promote improved collaboration between healthcare professionals. These changes will hopefully ease the workload on GPs, and mean that waiting times for appointments and administrative work will be reduced for general practitioners, and health monitoring and assessments can be carried out more regularly, and more accessibly, by more, trained individuals.