Sick Notes

‘HERE’S a question for you – what should NHS staff do when they’re feeling ill? Stay at home or come into work?

‘I AM SICK’

We ask because a report in this morning’s Times suggests that people who work in the health service take more days off sick than anyone else in Britain.

The average NHS worker takes 11.6 days off a year, compared with only 5.5 sick days a year by those involved in private services like consultancy work.

The fact that it has such an ill workforce is not exactly a great advert for the NHS – it’s rather like the DSS being staffed by benefit cheats or schools being full of illiterate teachers.

However, it is stress, says the report by the Chartered Institute Of Personnel And Development, that is apparently to blame for a lot of the days off.

And given that Mondays and Fridays are the most common days to be sick, we imagine that the stress of trying to pack everything into a two-day weekend is just too much for some people…’

Posted: 5th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink