NHS: Sick Leave

(asked on 18th January 2023) - View Source
Questioner
Matt Western Portrait
Matt Western
(Labour - Warwick and Leamington)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS staff were off sick with stress-related illnesses in (a) 2012 and (b) 2022.

Answered by
Will Quince Portrait
Will Quince
This question was answered on 26th January 2023

Data on sickness absence is collected in the Electronic Staff Record, the human resources system for the National Health Service. Within this data it is not possible to specifically identify those recorded as absent due to ‘stress’. This sits within wider categories of absence collected, therefore for 2012, ‘stress-related’ reasons include 'Other Mental Disorders', 'Psychological', 'Stress' and 'S10 Anxiety/stress/depression/other psychiatric illnesses'. For 2021 and 2022, stress reasons include 'S10 Anxiety/stress/depression/other psychiatric illnesses'. The following table below shows the full time equivalent (FTE) days lost for ‘stress-related’ illnesses in 2012,2021 and 2022:

Type

2012

2021

2022 (January to August)

FTE days available

384,901,520

467,978,005

319,962,005

FTE days lost due to all reasons

16,271,654

23,531,596

18,050,326

FTE days lost due to stress related reasons

2,846,280

6,214,112

3,992,109

Stress related sickness absence rate as a percentage of FTE days available

0.7%

1.3%

1.2%

Stress related sickness absence rate as a percentage of FTE days lost due to all reasons

17.5%

26.4%

22.1%

FTE days lost due to Unknown reasons

2,490,021

697,063

485,420

Source: NHS Digital Sickness Absence Data

Notes:

  1. For 2012, stress reasons include 'Other Mental Disorders', 'Psychological', 'Stress' and 'S10 Anxiety/stress/depression/other psychiatric illnesses'. For 2021 and 2022, stress reasons include 'S10 Anxiety/stress/depression/other psychiatric illnesses'.
  2. 2022 only covers months of January to August 2022 as this is the latest data available at this time.
  3. Part of the increase in FTE days lost by sickness absence reason may be attributable to the improvement in completion of sickness absence reason information by staff.
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