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Please do not use this service for any urgent medical queries.
If you have an urgent medical query, please call the practice or contact the out of hours service on 111. If you are having a medical emergency, call 999.
You do not need a fit note for the first 7 days in a row of sickness absence. This includes non-working days.
Your GP is only required to issue a certificate in your absence from work through sickness that lasts more than seven days and will not issue one for before the 7 days.
See more on the GOV.UK website about taking sick leave.
If you need a fit note for a new sickness absence of more than 7 days in a row, please send a medical request to book an appointment via our Rapid Health form.
Some employers or insurance schemes will ask you to provide a private fit note.
The surgery will charge you a fee to provide you with a private fit note.
Fit notes are usually not necessary for the first week of any illness.
For employers
A patient at this practice, has advised us that you as an employer, require a medical certificate confirming a period of sickness causing their absence from work for less than seven days. In its guide to doctors, the DSS states that we are not expected to issue statements of incapacity to work for periods lasting seven days or less.
The employers guide to Statutory Sick Pay NI 227, confirms that “…you (the employer) are not entitled to ask for a doctors statement for the first seven days of a spell of sickness”.
At Compass House Medical Centres we strictly adhere to the DSS guidelines. The purpose of this regulation is to avoid the need for employees with minor self-limiting illness to have to use surgery appointments for the sole purpose of getting an unnecessary certificate. We do not therefore issue medical certificates in these circumstances.
For any periods of sickness lasting less than seven days, for which the employer requires certification, we can issue a private certificate. As this certificate is not required under law for statutory sick pay purposes we are entitled to make a charge for the provision of such certificates. Should you require such a certificate from your employee it would be issued only after payment of our fee.
