This section give information on the keeping of sickness records that, we believe, complies with the provisions of the Data Protection Act (see link right).

 

 We suggest the following:

• A running record is kept of number of days illness/dates over an appropriate period, say two years.

• The employee provides self certification/ sick notes as normal.

• The information on the sick note is coded by local administrators according to the following categories:
  A    Acute illness
  B    Serious illness (typically in patient hospital treatment)
  C   Accident. at work
  D   Accident outside work
  E   Chronic illness, long term illness which may reasonably give rise to periodic absence.
  Our view is that the coded absence record is not sensitive information and can be held without explicit employee authority.

• Self Certification / doctors' certificates are returned to the employee to hold.

• The contract of employment is changed to make it clear that the employee should store the sick notes for a period of two years because they may need justify absence by producing sick notes to the company's medical practitioner  if their absence pattern is questioned.