Title: Do teacher references and attendance matter for medicine applications?

I didn't apply for medicine, but I also had medical issues in Year 12/13 with 88% attendance.
With my school, and most in the UK, references are a formality. They might say: they are on the 16-19 bursary, free school meals, they didn't have a teacher for a long time. That is why a lot of universities take little notice of them. They see if there is anything for contextual offers, and that is typically it. Maybe in competition between 2 people for a place it may be included, but not very much. That's what my sixth form told me.
If your attendance issues are accepted, and health issues will be, I wouldn't expect them to include it. Your school may be different, but I don't expect them to be. Have you had information from your school on how references work? Maybe you could ask them what they include and if they are regular references for everyone.

That’s a good idea the teacher references would be cliche if the teacher had nothing good to say about you they would never say anything bad

That’s a good idea the teacher references would be cliche if the teacher had nothing good to say about you they would never say anything bad

I write a lot of UCAs references. I am told that unis do take them seriously and it is the vocab used that indicates a strong candidate or not. I would not mention attendance if 90% and a good reason.
Unis do know which schools over-predict though.

For my school, again may be a little different. They had a list of good statements for each subject that we picked some from for the teachers to put in our reference. If you had less other stuff like free school meals etc, you just had more of those.
Also, they will try and find something/anything you have done to write in it.
This is why a lot of teacher references are rubbish and not useful to universities. If you behave very badly, never attend class etc, then it will likely be included, but other than that they don't typically include anything bad.
References are split into 3 different sections. Information about the school, extenuating circumstances and other information.

Do you know why they take them seriously?