Employees on long-term sick leave must provide medical information to facilitate return to work

The Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) requires that employees provide reasonable evidence of their unfitness for work to received paid personal, or sick, leave. Anti-discrimination legislation makes dismissal on grounds of impairment unlawful unless the employee cannot perform the inherent requirements of the role, with or without reasonable adjustments implemented by the employer. This means that if an employee’s impairment is causing them to be absent from work for an extended period, the employee is at risk of being dismissed if they refuse their employer’s requests for additional information to assess what, if any, reasonable adjustments could be made to the role to facilitate their return to work.

In Sim v Monash Health (2026), an employee was dismissed because of his incapacity to perform the inherent requirements of the role for which he was employed and his refusal to provide information requested to enable consideration of what reasonable adjustments might be required to enable the employee to perform those inherent requirements.

The employee was on sick leave for an extended period and supplied medical certificates from his treating practitioner stating that, at best, he could work 4 hours per week performing “non-stressful” work. The role in which the employee was employed was a full-time role that required:

completion of work that was time-sensitive;
ongoing monitoring and follow-up; and
consistent and regular communication with various stakeholders.

The employer argued the proposal to perform 4 hours per week on non-stressful work was vague and incapable of implementation without further information. In any event, such an adjustment was not reasonable as it would not have permitted the employee to perform the genuine and reasonable requirements of the role. The employer requested information to enable consideration of what reasonable adjustments might be required to enable the employee to perform the inherent requirements of his role.

The employee argued the certificates were time-limited and could not justify the conclusion that the employee could not return to his substantive role in the foreseeable future. The employer could have proposed alternate duties or adjusted arrangements for the employee’s doctor to assess.

The Fair Work Commission (FWC) rejected this argument, observing identical certificates had been provided over a period in excess of 6 months. Given the certificates supplied by employee’s treating practitioner established he could not meet the inherent requirements of the role, the employee was obliged to cooperate with the employer’s request for additional information that would assist the employer to consider what, if any, reasonable adjustments could be made to the role.

The FWC ruled in this case that the employee could not simply issue certificates of capacity from the employee’s treating medical practitioner and throw the obligation to the employer to determine the issue of reasonable adjustments.

Codes of practice now mandatory in New South Wales
In a further step requiring businesses to implement reasonably practicable controls to eliminate safety risks, from 1 July in New South Wales, all minister-approved codes of practice are now mandatory ...