Vocational rehabilitation

doi:10.1136/bmj.b4191

Published 12 October 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4191
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4191

Letters

From sick notes to fit notes

Vocational rehabilitation

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Vocational rehabilitation services are needed in addition tooccupational health services focused on assessment and adviceto increase the uptake of returning to partial work.¹ They maymake all the difference between years of employment and yearsof claiming long term disability benefits, particularly forthose with long term neurological conditions.

General practitioners consider themselves to be their patients’advocates,¹ but how do they tackle the thorny issue of disclosureof a health problem to employers? A recent report on vocationalrehabilitation from the British Society for Rehabilitation Medicineand Jobcentre Plus gives the following advice about sharinginformation:

There is no need to declare medical history on job applications,butif an applicant is asked to do so and doesn’t, thismightrepresent a breach of contract
Medical information is personaldata which an employer has noright to know. This informationshould be sent only to a clinician. . . [Full text of this article]

Vera Neumann, consultant and honorary senior lecturer, rehabilitation medicine¹, Diane Playford, senior lecturer and consultant²

¹ Academic Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Leeds LS1 3EX, ² UCL Institute of Neurology, and National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, UCLH Trust, London

veran@firenet.uk.com