Auditing absence due to sickness

EDITOR,—Martin McKee and colleagues highlight some difficulties with the use of routine data for audit and refer to experience in obstetrics.1 In occupational health practice we have encountered similar problems in setting up a system to audit absence attributed to sickness. Certificates for absences due to sickness of more than seven days are obtained by employees from general practitioners and usually forwarded to the employer's personnel or finance department. For self certified spells of illness of shorter …