Our advice is to decline any requests from parents for sick notes or letters. This includes providing appointment cards or stamped compliments slips as these reinforce the expectation that proof is required. Med3 certificates are only to be used for those over age 16yrs and in employment.
If the school or parent requests such proof from you, this should be declined and they should be directed to the link below. Advise such a request is non-NHS, private work and as such would require payment. Equally as a practice you are not obliged to offer this service which is non-core. Usually explaining this isn’t required by law, and is a private service stops future requests. Ensuring your reception team are aware of this helps prevent appointments being booked solely for this reason.
If a parent/school insists on a letter and the practice is willing to provide one, such requests should be put in writing, payment received in advance and include appropriate consent both from the parent and child depending on their age. Any such letters by the practice should be factual only. We don’t advise practices to engage in such requests even as a private service as it perpetuates the myth that such evidence is required and takes time away from NHS core service delivery. It also places clinicians at risk of inadvertently jeopardising reasonable scrutiny of repeated school absence which may have safeguarding implications.
If there is one particular school making repeated requests, we are able to contact them on the practice’s behalf. If several schools make this type of request, it would be worth putting a statement on the practice’s website to say that letters and sick notes cannot be provided to parents / carers and flagging this to the local authority.
The link below outlines responsibilities of the different parties in the case of school absence and reinforces that medical notes are not required: