Prison Officers: Sick Leave

(asked on 19th October 2018) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate his Department has made of the number of prison officers that have taken sick leave due to (a) anxiety and (b) depression in Wales in each year since 2012.


Answered by
 Portrait
Rory Stewart
This question was answered on 29th October 2018

In response to PQ 181615, it is only possible to provide figures for anxiety and depression together as they are not held separately and often amalgamated on the central records of sickness absences. The number of band 3-5 prison officers that have taken sick leave due to anxiety or depression in Wales in each year since 2012 is provided in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Band 3-5 prison officers1 who took sick leave due to Anxiety or Depression2 in England, 2011/12 to 2017/18

Band 3-5 officers that have taken sick leave due to anxiety and depression

2011/12

13

2012/13

10

2013/14

12

2014/15

6

2015/16

11

2016/173

5

2017/183

24

In response to PQ 181618, the number of band 3-5 prison officers that have taken sick leave due to stress in Wales in each year since 2012 is provided in Table 2 below.

Table 2 - Number of Band 3 to 5 prison officers1 who took sick leave due to stress2 in England, 2011/12 to 2017/18

Band 3-5 officers that have taken sick leave due to stress

2011/12

11

2012/13

18

2013/14

18

2014/15

21

2015/16

22

2016/173

43

2017/183

46

Notes to tables 1 and 2

1 Includes Band 3-4 / Prison Officer (incl. specialists), Band 4 / Supervising Officer and Band 5 / Custodial Managers.

2 If an individual has taken sick leave more than once due to this reason in the same financial year, they are only counted once.

3 Between January and March 2017, during migration of data to the Single Operating Platform, an under-recording of sickness absence records occurred. There is therefore likely to be an undercount of working days lost for the 12 months to 31 March 2017 and subsequent under-estimate of average working days lost.

In response to PQ 181621, information is not available centrally on the number of prison officers that have taken sick leave due to PTSD.

HMPPS is committed to ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of its staff in England and Wales, with all staff having access to a comprehensive occupational health service and employee assistance programme.

Reticulating Splines