A day off sick?
According to statistics today, staff in the NHS take more sick leave than those in private industry. Forty-five thousand people are said to be absent each day - but that figure would be a lot lower if the NHS in England had reduced sick leave at the same rate as other sectors.
This morning, Shelagh spoke to Matthew, who's on the front line of NHS Care, an experienced doctor who works in the South West of England; and Elayne Meggit, a former registered nurse who last worked for the NHS three years ago.
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What's your experience of sickness at work? This is the subject of the phone-in from 9am. We want to hear from you if you're a boss or a worker. Perhaps you suffer from a long-term condition or maybe you've never had a day off sick in your life...
It's the discussion on the 5 live phone-in at 9 with Shelagh.
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Reasons behind sickness in the nhs are that staff work in an enviroment that consists of all bodily fluids. Blood vomit diorhea sputum. patients have flu coughs.All of which is passed onto the nurses themselves.
Agency staff that are not trained or have the motivation come onto a ward and feel it is their duty to do as little as possible because they will not be reurning the following day.
This passes the exra work load onto normal full time staff.
Back aches head aches lack of sleep due to not being able to switch off at the end of the shift poor shift patterns due to staff having their own way over how a weeks off duty rota all impacts on the body.And when you ring in sick you have to attend a meeting upon your return and made to feel as though the sickness is a fault of our own doing and not the enviroment...where is our duty of care
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The levels of obesity in the nursing and ward assistant staff where I have been visiting for 15 weeks lead me to believe that they don't read any of the health advice we all have access to. No wonder so many have back problems, they couldn't lift a patient if they tried. There is also an apathy apparent amongst certain grades which I guess make some people feel they can't be bothered to go to work for the low wage they are paid.
Sorry. I am a supporter and user of the NHS and it has saved the lives of several of my very close family, and myself. But some of the attitudes you meet on the wards are very poor and with that mindset maybe taking a day off to cheer yourself up is the price the NHS pays for paying top heavy salaries to managers and leaving the people on the shop floor to do the dirty jobs for less.
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Perhaps you should be focusing the debate on the amount of sick leave that the police force takes.
I understood that they are top of the league on sick leave; but bottom on clear up rates. The NHS are not the worse.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I am the Managing Director of a telecommunications company employing 15 people. Over many years our sickness levels have been less than 5%. This is a result of a positive work ethic throughout the company and is typical of many companies in the private sector, where inefficiency is not an option.
Conversely, we have many first hand dealings with the public sector, from schools to councils, the ease at which a significant section of employees in these organisations take time off for 'sickness' is nothing short of a national disgrace. Often there appears to be little or no accountablility. No doubt many will disagree, quoting 'stress levels' and working conditions, to those I say, I meet and deal with both sectors and I can assure you, we certainly have our challenges in the private sector.
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The NHS and most public sector jobs offer 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay with very little checks made when someone is off sick. Wonder why there is more sickness in these areas?
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I work in a busy department in a northern hospital employing over 200 people.
We were given a breakdown of the sickness absence rates amongst different categories of employee which were roughly as follows:
Nursing Staff 8%
Clerical Staff 4%
Doctors 1%
Don't tar everyone with the same brush.
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The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) believes massive changes need to be made to create a healthier UK plc. We all need to pull in the same direction - government, employers, professionals, advisers and workers. As a nation, we must ensure that everyone understands how to protect and improve health, and emphasise the message that 'worker-friendly' workplaces are productive and mutually beneficial.
IOSH believes the UK needs to capture the national resource offered by health and safety practitioners, who could, for example, act as workplace advocates; play a role in educating managers; and help spot the early indications of possible occupational illness, ensuring earlier interventions and referrals.
Many issues hindering return to work are organisational and not clinical and are issues that safety and health practitioners are well placed to help their emplyoyers address. A small amount of additional training, building on core competence and experience, could mobilise around 10,000 health and safety practitioners. Ideally positioned and sufficient in number, once trained, they could help make a real difference.
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My age group worked hard for a 40 hour, 5 day week, paid holidays, health and safety at work, etc.
Today's workers have given it back to the employers.
Little wonder there is more sickness.
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3. Bluewolf! Good point about sick record in the police. Plus what about the sick record in banking and finance, legal professions, public service broadcasting, property etc?
What with the crisis in Afghanistan, more carnage in Iraq, more billions pumped into the economy by the Bank of England to underlie the pretence that the economy is recovering, what better a story is this for news producers to pick on like NHS sickness levels. I'm sure all these 'findings' by these unaccountable bodies are all kept in abeyance to replace the reporting of 'bad news' when it occurs!
Sickness levels in any profession whether in the private or public domain are more symptmatic of the economy as a whole and is a secondary issue. Whilst some private sector workers will obviously fall for the 'divide and rule' tactics of the establishment and blame public sector workers, they should realise that when the state bails out banks etc to the tune of billions they are really bailing out the entire private sector whose inefficiency and unprofitibility (through no fault of the workers) over the last 20 odd years was the cause of the excessive borrowing and lending practices of banks etc and which was rubber stamped by all party politicians
All this is really to draw a wedge between public and private sector workers whilst the economy plummets into further debt and disarray.
A small part of all these billions injected into finance could be used to augment the NHS which in turn would deal with the level of staff sickness.
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