Letters
Drug users and sick notes
EDITOR, - Clive L Morrison and Sue M Ruben recommend that general practitioners should not issue sick notes to drug users unless they have a coexisting medical or psychiatric condition.1 Twenty four of my patients are receiving maintenance treatment with methadone, and all but one receives invalidity benefit. The immediate effect of my refusing to issue further sick notes would be to reduce their weekly income from pounds sterling 69.10 to pounds sterling 45.70, assuming that they then received income support. Understandably, my patients are reluctant to accept this and I am reluctant to impose it on them.
Why should there be such a difference between the values of invalidity benefit and income support? This difference results in great pressure being brought to bear on general practitioners to certify people as unfit when it seems unlikely that they will find work. If the value of the two benefits was equal
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- Drug users and sick notes
- C L Morrison and S M Ruben
BMJ 1994 309: 271.[Extract] [Full Text]
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