Ill-health retirement: a survey of decision making by occupational physicians working for local authority fire and police services.

Aims: To investigate the effect of qualifications, experience and service on ill-health retirement decisions made by police force and fire brigade medical advisers.

Methods: Doctors advising UK fire and police authorities attending a conference were given 16 case summaries from experienced fire and police advisers and asked to predict the outcome in terms of return to work or ill-health retirement. The answers were scored by assessing whether the outcome predicted by the participant agreed with the case setter.