As others have said, send your sick note to your employer, if she terminates your employment contract you will then qualify for incapacity benefit because you lost your job through ill health, incapacity benefit is much more than SSP so I'd go for that option.

Spot on, Colin.

Bev - well done for finally taking notice of your doctor!

x0x

You've been given some great advice hun, all I can add is do it tomorrow, any claim you put in for income support/incapacity benefit will be paid from the day you make the claim, if you leave it till next week you will have missed out on a a weeks money

Thankyou everyone. I will phone her and leave a message when I know she is not in the office and tell her the doctor has signed me off for a couple of weeks but said it may be longer as i have to see him again then, and i will get my sick note dropped off to her. If she rings back and says she won't pay sick pay then I will do as you advise.
I don't really want to let her have the sick note if she won't pay me as I will need it i think to claim as you said above.
You really have been so helpful Thankyou again.

Your Medical Certificate should go to your employer & I would keep a copy. If you follow the advice here you will be doing the correct thing, if your employer doesn't pay you your SSP then the claim goes to the Job Centre Plus as they deal with all claims for people under pension age. You will not be refused Incapacity Benefit(if you qualify)because you have left your job, that only applies to Job Seekers Allowance

You can be dismissed whilst being off sick, it is done on the grounds of medical ineffiency, how do I know ? because after 34+ years with the same employer it happened to me 2 1/2 years ago-I used to work for the DWP

You should claim Council Tax Benefit whilst waiting for the SSP or Incapacity benefit to be sorted, that way you will get it from as early as possible

Some good advice given here.
Know it's not much help but I can appreciate how it's all confusing and a little bit scary.
Different from your circumstance but for the first time in my working career I was made redundant last Friday. I'd been there 7 years. So I'm in the middle of trying to sort out benefits and mortgage protections etc. Feel very out of my depth. My advice just take everything one step at a time. Get your note of to your employer and then contact your local benefits office. They don't bite and are actually very helpful (so I've found this week)
Keep your chin up and remember your health is the most important thing. Do what your doctor tells you.

I've nothing to add but all the best from here, its bad enough being in constant pain without all this to do aswell.xxxxxxxx

This is more difficult than I thought, Council tax and Housing benefit want to see the actual sick note, so I am taking that there tomorrow. Then family tax credits want the actual sick note (not a copy sent to them) when i get my first wage slip from work, which will not be until the 10th of march . Yet my employer needs it to sort out sick pay (If she is going to pay it) I can't go till the end of March with no sick pay of some sort and I can't let employer have it until Family tax credits have had it. This is ridiculous and stressing me out so much.

Just take the sick note into the Council tax and Housing benefit office and the family tax credit office, let then take there phootocopies now and then take the note to your enmmployer.

Once you have done that you can cliam income support to carry you over.

We do not have a family tax credit office near here I have to send that away to get it to them, It worries me that it may get lost in the post as they won't accept a copy.