NHS counts high cost of staff sickness (From The Argus)
Get involved: Send your news, views, pictures and video by texting SUPIC to 80360 or email us.
Sussex NHS counts cost of staff sickness
5:40pm Monday 13th February 2012 in News By Siobhan Ryan, Health Reporter
Sick days are believed to cost NHS bosses millions of pounds a year.
Day-to-day pressures facing staff and outbreaks of viruses have led to significant numbers of workers taking time off ill.
Staff have also been put under increasing strain because of fears over job losses while cutbacks mean fewer workers are doing the same jobs.
A report by the Audit Commission estimates the average cost per organisation is about £3.3 million a year in sick pay.
There is also an additional £1.9 million a year cost of having to provide cover for shifts.
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust has a sickness rate of 3.9% compared to a national average of around 4.4%.
East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust has a rate of about 4.1% while Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust was 3.4%.
Hospital bosses say procedures are in place to manage staff attendance and an occupational health service was also available for employees and managers.
Work includes using staff to take part in a health and wellbeing survey while staff are also encouraged to boost their own health by joining stop smoking courses.
Schemes such as promoting walking or cycling to work are also promoted.
A spokesman for Western Sussex Hospitals, which runs Worthing Hospital, Southlands Hospital in Shoreham and St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester, said: “Some absence is inevitable, but we always seek to do everything we can to help our staff to be healthy at work, and to support them back into the workplace should they require time off.”
