Author: Kathryn Lunceford

I can still remember in horror my grandmother grumbled in her overgrown garden picking these leaves in the leaves, throwing them all into a pot of boiling water and drinking it. Of course at the time I, plus a lot of the other young members of the family, thought she was quite mad and more than a little weird. What we didn’t realise at the time was that Grandmother was saner than any of us and quite the herbalist, and it seems,  quite a brilliant one at that. As much as I rack my brain I can’t remember her suffering from anything so common as the common cold in her entire long life time. Of course, some might say it had nothing to do with her unusual er…habits, she was just one of those lucky few who experience a better health for most of their charmed lives. Of course, I can’t argue with that. However the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that she knew something I didn’t. She knew I believe, some of the old ways. The ways that somehow tied us to the land for everything that we needed. The land, Mother Nature if you like, sustained us. Not just for our food but also (and doesn’t it make a lot of sense when you think about it), for our health.

Let me explain, I’m not one of those people we want to go back to. For all the grandmother’s wisdom, she still could not cure Rickets, TB, or Polio. Those terrible diseases that almost die will come later when we are wiser and vision is more hygienic. No, what I’m suggesting is a combination of both. A partnering of the knowledge of the past with today’s expertise in science and what have you. Of then and now. The fact is we’re moving far too fast and as we speed along we forget. We forget the good and useful things from the past. And I believe we forget at our peril. The way I remember it, my Grandmother treated herself. Whenever she appeared to be developing a cold for instance, there were no trips to the doctor, no bottles of cough mixture or pills, no, there was a towel over the head and a hot bowl of something to sniff and breath in. Ok, so it wasn’t very nice to look at for us kids, but it seemed to work.

Of course the truth is, we haven’t really forgotten. We’ve just become impatient. We just don’t have the time to be ill. We want an instant fix, which of course has its downside. Pills, pills and more pills. Anything to hide the symptoms and give us the false impression that we are as good as new and can carry on.

But all is not lost. At least I don’t think so. Thankfully, judging by the number of Herbal Remedy type shops that seem to be springing up everywhere Grandmother’s skills seem to be undergoing something … Read More

As an experienced Occupational Health Nurse, I have always wondered why it is that some HR professionals and managers write to GPs rather than ask an Occupational Health specialist for a report to help them to manage absence. Occupational Health is the speciality of medicine which has the knowledge skills and training to provide advice on fitness for work in any industry setting and also has specialist knowledge of the diseases of occupations

Asking a GP, who has never had any occupational health training or even visited a workplace, for an opinion on fitness to work, rarely provides any useful advice on capability. It generally lengthens the management of the absence as GPs are very busy and can take weeks before a response is received and the report can be expensive.

Maybe it’s time to review your approach?

1. In my experience, non-medical people writing for a GP report are mostly wasting their time. I know that seeking further medical evidence is advised in many management of absence procedures, but I do not believe writing to a GP will give you anything other than a report which states the employee’s perspective on their medical condition. Once that is written in a report, it can sometimes ‘stranglehold’ the employer into a corner it is difficult to get out of without being seen to be unreasonable.

‘If Mrs Jones could be given a job nearer to home with light duties, reduced hours and a different Manager, I am sure she would be able to return to work’

2. The GP report may advise you of an employee’s diagnosis, but can you really make a judgement on what work capability an employee has from a medical diagnosis? If for example they are diagnosed with bi polar disorder, endometriosis or sciatica where does this leave you? Can you be absolutely sure that you are aware of all reasonable adjustments possible for these conditions? Fitness for work is about capability and not disability and the majority of GPs do not have enough knowledge of the workplace, diseases of occupations or risk assessments to provide a report which can be used by employers to manage a case forward with confidence in the workplace.

3. Reasonable adjustments are required if a condition may be likely to fall under the provision of the Equality Act 2010. This is however ultimately a legal and not a medical decision, but identifying what your obligations are in terms of disability legislation, can be complex and the tribunals are busy with cases where employers have not considered what the employee can do, rather than what they can’t. GP reports do not generally offer much helpful advice in this area and employers can easily fail to make simple adjustments just because they have not been given enough guidance on what can be done in the workplace to increase the capability, or ‘workability’ of employees with a medical condition. The GP will confirm that a medical condition is present, but how does … Read More