The worker is no longer obliged to hand in his sick leave to the company.

Doctors will only issue the copy of the report to the employee, which the company will have to access telematically. The measure will come into force when it is published in the Official State Gazette (BOE).

The obligation that all salaried workers currently have to inform their companies of their sick leave reports for temporary incapacity (TI) when they have a medical mishap and are unable to work is now a thing of the past. Last week, the last Council of Ministers of the year approved a Royal Decree that introduced modifications to the management and control of temporary incapacity (TI) processes in the first 365 days of their duration.

Specifically, the Government has eliminated the obligation for self-employed workers to be the ones who must send their companies the medical sick leave reports, as it will be the company that will have to obtain the information from the Administration. Thus, according to the text of the Social Security authorities, “only one copy (of the sick leave report) will be given to the worker; and both the second copy and the obligation for the worker to give this copy to the company, managing body or mutual insurance company is eliminated”.

In this way, the second copy of the sick leave and medical discharge reports that the employee was obliged to send to his or her company, by the means chosen by the worker, will disappear.

As an alternative, the regulation will stipulate that “communication between the issuing entities and the INSS will be telematic, avoiding procedures that can be burdensome for people who are temporarily incapacitated and taking advantage of the possibilities for improving effectiveness and efficiency offered by advances in digitalisation and information technology”.

However, this Royal Decree approved last week by the Council of Ministers, which amends Royal Decree 625/2014, will not enter into force until it is published shortly in the Official State Gazette (BOE). Article 7.1 of that Royal Decree of 2014 was the one that established the obligation of the worker to hand in the sick leave and medical discharge reports to their employer.

If you have any questions regarding this subject, please do not hesitate to contact us by telephone, Isabel Torre Carazo or by e-mail at itc@btsasociados.com, we will be delighted to help you.