NHS sick leave: Your experiences

Illness rates among NHS staff are much higher than those in the private sector and more must be done to cut sick days, according to independent experts.

The government-commissioned NHS Health and Wellbeing interim report said by helping workers NHS trusts could improve performance and efficiency.

What do you think? Here are some of the comments you have been sending in to the BBC News website.

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I am a midwife at a teaching hospital and the amount of sickness due to work related stress is phenomenal. Managers do not care about the welfare of their staff and they bully you even when you are sick. I myself have been a victim of their bullying ways and have been off sick for a long time. If they think that bullying will make you a better and more efficient health worker, then they are deceiving themselves. We cannot help our patients if we are unable to care for ourselves. This is a national problem and needs to be tackled at source. There is a nationwide shortage of midwives and the stresses under which we have to work do not make for good mental or physical wellbeing.
S, London

If nothing changes, I cannot work in this environment for much longer Anonymous

I work for the NHS in a busy mental health ward. Our staffing levels are always stretched. We are constantly being pushed to save more money and do more but with less staff. It is extremely stressful and so far I have had over 10 days off sick since March with stress-related problems. Before working in the NHS I had never taken a day off sick. Sometimes the pressure can become too much and it is safer to be at home. For me, working in the NHS has a direct impact on my own mental health; it is stressful and we are all under pressure. As much as I enjoy working with patients, if nothing changes, I cannot work in this environment for much longer.
Anonymous

I think the main reason we have more sick days is really twofold. Firstly, you are less likely to come in to work with a fairly minor ailment such as a cold, because you do not want to pass it to a patient who is already immuno-compromised. As nurses, we work twelve-and-a-half-hour shifts so it's hard to drag yourself in to work when you know you won't be home until after 2100.
Katie, Edinburgh

A few people who I used to work with saw sick leave as another version of annual leave Dan, West Midlands

I have worked within the NHS for nearly 10 years. I have not had more than a day off sick in five years. A few people who I used to work with saw sick leave as another version of annual leave and treated it as such. I am certainly not saying this way of viewing sickness is endemic across the NHS but clamping down on the few who abuse the sick pay system would save trusts a lot of money.
Dan, West Midlands

I work as a staff nurse in a busy hospital. We deal with sickness and infection every single day. Despite being careful by hand-washing and infection control methods we still pick up infections. The hospital workplace is stressful. High levels of stress can make you more receptive to catching infections. So of course NHS workers are going to take more sick leave. I agree there are some people who abuse the system but for those of us who only go off sick when it's genuine, we feel guilty the whole time that we aren't there because we know we've added extra pressure on our work colleagues. We do not go off sick for fun.
Debby, Bristol

The NHS is not like a normal business; its requirements and interactions are different Rich, Bristol

If people arrive here, they're sick. Visitors to wards also bring germs. Then there's the fact that healthcare staff deal with biological matter. Plus we work long days, suffer mental stress (we're dealing with people's lives, not their shoes) and significant understaffing. It's not surprising that sickness is rife. When the options are to turn up to work ill and possibly pass on germs to patients who might then get worse or even die, or messing up your sickness statistics, the sane thing is to upset the HR departments and stay well away from the patients, many of which have impaired immune systems from being very ill already. The NHS is not like a normal business; its requirements and interactions are different. Understand that and you'll understand the problems.
Rich, Bristol

I am a nurse. I am returning to work after five months off with Plantar Fascitis, which was exacerbated by being on my feet. I tried to return after a month but I was told to return to 12 hour shifts which physically I could not do. My return to work means a lot to me but I'm now having to use all my holiday entitlement to make up my full-time hours. I work in a medical high dependency unit that is busy beyond belief. Whilst I was off, our staffing numbers for a shift were cut due to funding and it is extremely stressful for all nursing staff. The change in working conditions has led to increased sickness among staff in the unit.
Anonymous, Glenrothes

I am a staff nurse at an occupational health department. Within our Trust all staff are eligible for fast track physiotherapy and six free counselling sessions. Although this is a very valuable service it doesn't reduce sickness absence rates. Management styles and work environments need to be addressed. Workplace stress risk assessments should be used more effectively. At the end of the day staff need more support, unfortunately this is often lacking and very valuable staff are lost.
Name withheld, Norfolk

As a nurse, it's expected we work many unpaid extra hours and go without meal breaks to cover staff shortages. Also the job is physically and mentally demanding so if we're unwell it's far harder to continue working than an office based job. And lastly, any financial shortfalls are resolved through cutting frontline jobs, this means that the staff who stay have to work even more unpaid hours to meet care needs.
Anonymous, West Yorkshire

We are working flat out and are all stressed and exhausted D, Merthyr Tydfil

Where I work, we have had our workload doubled per shift. This was supposed to have only been a temporary measure to reach waiting list targets but now it has been made permanent. Our staffing levels are down to just over two thirds of our normal numbers so this means we are working flat out and are all stressed and exhausted by the time we leave.
D, Merthyr Tydfil

Most of the time off is caused by the job within the NHS. Low staffing levels, unable to take breaks, mountains of paperwork rather than direct patient care and so on. The NHS needs to address this before taking the staff to task over sickness. Probably the biggest issue is funding. The service has been cut to the bone with many staff working extra hours to keep wards running at minimum safe levels.
T.H, Margate

I work in as a district nurse and I do feel strongly the PCT does what it can to help staff who are struggling in some respects; for example we have an Improving Working Lives group who regularly communicate via e-mail to say what is available and what they are doing, we also have days where therapists are available to give staff treatments such as massage, aromatherapy and Indian head massage. We also have very clear guidelines as to when staff should be referred to Occupational Health to prevent problems getting out of control and to identify other underlying causes of sick leave.

We are often working with fewer nurses than we need to do the job well Debbie, Orpington

However, as frontline members of staff my colleagues and I have not been able to take advantage of the therapy sessions due to workload pressures and the Trust is under increasing pressure to reduce costs. We are often working with fewer nurses than we need to do the job well and this puts extra pressure on those left. More people then go off sick and so it goes on.
Debbie, Orpington

Having worked as a junior doctor for the last five years in the NHS, chronic staff shortages and lack of targeted funding towards filling vacancies means that the staff who are diligent work their fingers to the bone, and those who aren't go off sick. By trying to reduce staff sickness without putting extra resources to where it is needed (like ensuring adequate medical, nursing and midwifery cover) all you will do is penalise the core of workers who turn up through hell or high water. This makes them even more disillusioned and you lose more good staff.
Zoe, East Yorkshire

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