Please read this helpful explanation of the regulations regarding time off work due to ill-health on the government website, you are also able to download a self-certificate if you have been off for seven days or less. 

Doctors are not permitted to issue a backdated note which pre-dates your first assessment for the condition. For example, if you suffer from a flu-like illness and miss two weeks of work, but only contact us at the end of that period for the purpose of obtaining a note, the practice cannot issue a backdated note to cover that second week of absence. Requests for notes are not medically urgent and so can take time to be processed, please make sure to contact us by sending an AccuRx form in good time (before you want the sicknote done). We can however backdate notes if you have been off long-term sick.

If you are under a hospital specialist for the condition that is making you unable to work, it is the specialist who is obliged to provide your certificate. Sometimes they, or their colleagues, will tell you that the GP will do it, but it is their responsibility as they are the ones with detailed knowledge of your condition and are best placed to provide the detail on the certificate. The same thing applies to having surgery, the surgical team should provide you with the appropriate sicknote before you leave hospital.

If your employer requests a doctor’s certificate for periods less than seven days, or a return to work note, these are not covered by the regulations and are deemed to be a private letter and as such will incur a fee.