Sort and merged cells

Hi,
I have a workbook that managers input who is off work and who has returned (in a nutshell).
I have 14 rows that the names go into and 6 columns next to them.
The columns have info for why the persons off, what actions were taken, how many days they've been off ect.
When the manager picks who has returned to work (using a combobox on a users form that has a dropdown list which range is that of the names in the first column) it removes the name and the other info from the row the name was in.

This leaves a gap in the data along the row.

I need to remove the gaps and sort the data in the reason they are off, i.e sick, service day, maternity ect.

All of the rows have 2 cells merged apart from the last 1. I can not use the sort function because off this.

To get round it I unmerge the cells, sort the data, merge the top 2 cells in the first column, copy it down the remaining 13 rows with format only, then repeat for the remaining 5 columns.
This puts a thick black boarder on all the cells because the top cell has a thick boarder.

I have to then select all the cells and format the boarders back to how they were.

The macro runs slow and it looks a mess as its running.

Can anyone help me clean it up?

If you have read all that, thanks.