Sick note Britain crackdown as GPs ordered to send patients to the gym

The Government is trialling a pilot progamme designed to reduce the number people signed off work. The newly announced scheme encourages GPs to send patients health and job coaches instead of only issuing "sick notes" in response to a steep rise in people missing work through illness over the past 10 years.

The WorkWell Primary Care Innovation Fund, backed by £1.5million across 15 regions, will see GPs getting additional funding to give patients specialist support, with the NHS helping Britons to find ways to rejoin the workforce. In a press release, the Government said they expect WorkWell to support as many as 56,000 disabled people and people with health conditions into work by spring 2026.

It comes after 11 million "fit notes" were issued by the health service last year, a dramatic increase from the 5.3 million seen in 2015, according to official figures.

93% of the notes issued in 2024 said were patients "not fit for work" without an alternative or a plan to help them find or remain in work, as reported by The Times.

The government says interventions via the fund could include hiring "work and health coaches, social prescribers or occupational therapists which GP teams could refer patients to for holistic support, help and advice, from gym memberships to career coaching".

It could also also see support and upskilling for occupational therapists or physiotherapists "to issue fit notes and improve the quality of work and health advice given to a patient".

Additionally ministers hope it will see GPs and wider GP teams given the skills "to improve their ability to support patients with local work and health advice".

Family doctors will work with employment coaches who can provide help to people with writing cover letters and CVs, as per The Times.

It's believed they will also collaborate with social prescribing workers, who can refer patients for support for things like gardening classes, and gym memberships.

Additionally, some patients will reportedly be connected to charities to get help with housing and debt management.

Ministers hope the scheme could eventually be expanded nationwide, as per the newspaper reports.

The health secretary, Wes Streeting said: "Some 2.8 million people are out of work due to health conditions - this is bad for patients, bad for the NHS, and bad for the economy.

"The sick society we inherited costs taxpayers eye-watering sums - we simply can't afford to keep writing people off.

Mr Streeting said the scheme "marks the end of a broken system that's been failing patients and holding back our economy for far too long".

He continued: "Right now, we're issuing 11 million fit notes a year, with 93 per cent simply dismissing people as 'not fit for work' - that's not healthcare, that's a bureaucratic dead end.

"We're changing this conversation. Instead of GPs spending precious time rubber-stamping people out of the workforce, we're supporting providers to bring in specialists - occupational therapists, work coaches, social prescribers - who can actually help people navigate back into employment while managing their health conditions."

Regions taking part in the pilot include:

• Birmingham and Solihull
• Black Country
• Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire
• Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
• Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
• Coventry and Warwickshire
• Frimley
• Herefordshire and Worcestershire
• Greater Manchester
• Lancashire and South Cumbria
• Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland
• North Central London
• North West London
• South Yorkshire
• Surrey Heartlands