Hello Mr Reynolds Never posted on here before (I've been a lurker mind for quite a while) however my anger at your recent situation has made me raise my head and comment for the first time. Until recently I worked for HMRC (aka the Inland Revenue). During the many years I worked for them I worked in a warm, safe and spacious office. The work was physically and mentally undemanding and if I made a mistake nobody died, (in fact nobody noticed but that's another story). The work was in fact frighteningly undemanding - so much so that any moderatly bright indiviudal could have been very quickly trained to complete it. What's alarming about that ? Well what's alarming is that the sickness regime I was working to was less demanding than yours. We were working to : four periods of absence in a rolling twelve month period, or absences resulting in ten of more days being lost in a rolling twelve month period. As it happens my sister has an immune deficient condition and spends half her life avoiding people with all manner of bugs at home and at her work - the fact that due to the idiocy of your senior management she may get picked up by an ambulance staffed by poorly individuals concerned about their jobs and therefore at work when they shouldn't be is not lost on me. Quite frankly I'd encourage you to walk away were it not for the fact you seem such an asset to the NHS. So all I can offer is my thanks for doing what you do for what you earn and for your hugely enjoyable blog / book / play . . . Love and stuff, Daniel Weir