Your recent article on the evidential value to employers of doctors' sick notes (see [2004] Gazette, 4 November, 41) reminded me with amusement of some produced to me in support of claims to sickness benefit that I heard on appeal as chairman of the local Social Security Appeal Tribunal.


Some GPs, having the courage of their convictions, would express doubt as to the genuineness of what their patients presented. 'Plumbum pendulum', for example. Another was 'G.O.K.' When I asked the clerk what he thought it meant, he replied 'God only knows'. I mildly rebuked him for the seemingly scant courtesy of his reply, before realising he was telling me that that was what the doctor had meant.


'Wife pregnant' was another and, of course, the commonly used equivocation of the fence-sitter, 'complains of backache'.



David Dolman, Shipton Hallewell & Co, Chesterfield