Sickness rate at Northumberland’s hospital trust rose at start of lockdown

NHS Digital data shows that in April, the first full month of lockdown, the overall staff sickness and absence rate at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust was 4.8%, up from 4.5% in March, and an increase from the 4.2% rate seen in the same month in 2019.

It means 11,632 full-time equivalent days of work across all staff groups in the trust were lost, from a total of 240,934 in April.

It comes as the latest statistics reveal 2.3million full-time working days were lost due to sickness across the NHS in April – the most in more than a decade.

The rate across the North East and Yorkshire was 5.9% in April – the second lowest of NHS England's seven regions. London had the highest rate, while the South West saw the lowest.

Overall, the national NHS staff sickness rate was 6.2% – the highest for any month on record.

Ann Stringer, executive director of human resources and organisational development at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, said: “At the height of coronavirus, we, like organisations across the country, did have slightly higher levels of sickness absence among our staff which is entirely understandable during a global pandemic.

“Our sickness absence figures, however, were lower than many other NHS trusts and have steadily decreased in the ensuing months.

“We are committed to looking after our staff and during Covid-19 we enhanced the psychological support we provide to them by putting in place a series of health and wellbeing initiatives.

“This was as a direct result of listening to what our staff told us through our weekly Corona Voice surveys and included a dedicated website, telephone line and Facebook group and mental health support, which were very well received.”

“Alongside this we emphasised the need for our staff to continue to take annual leave in order to rest and, for those staff at higher risk, we moved them to work in lower risk areas.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

The dramatic events of 2020 are having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers and consequently the advertising that we receive.

We are now more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news by buying a copy of our newspaper.

If you can, please do pick up a copy when you are at the shops.

Thank you for your support.