Sickness 'crisis' at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital as staff take two weeks off every year
New Cross Hospital is in the grips of a staff sickness ‘crisis’ as a report reveals workers are having an average of almost a fortnight off each year.
Bosses at the hospital admit the high levels of sickness, which are almost double the national average, present a ‘challenge’.
In its integrated quality and performance report for September 2017, the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust revealed that on average staff had 9.83 days off a year.
The report says the figure is above that experienced by other public sector workers. Wolverhampton City Council reported nine average days lost per employee in its annual report.
The report states: “The sickness rate for August 2017 is 4.36 per cent. This month’s sickness rate is 1.12 per cent above the trust’s target of 3.24 per cent.”
The report says the number of days off sick is higher for staff at the hospital than the national average for those that work in public services, who have 8.7 days off a year, and private sector workers who have 5.8 days off. People that work in manufacturing and production only take 5.9 days off sick a year on average.
Alan Duffell, director of workforce at the trust, said people who have left the trust often mention the difficulty of maintaining a work-life balance, adding: “Recruitment and retention of staff remains an issue and sickness levels continue to be a challenge.
“We have introduced a number of initiatives to reduce sickness levels across the Trust. These include having a dedicated health and wellbeing service for staff to access, setting up a wellbeing group to support improvements to the working environment, helping staff to come back to work early by having a phased return, or working in a different area until they are able to return fully.
“Sickness levels are a challenge for the organisation, but this is the same for many NHS organisations. This is an area that we continually focus. We do all that we can to help staff to maintain a healthy work life balance.”
In 2016, the trust reported an average loss of 10.25 days of sickness per person.
City councillor Paul Singh, shadow cabinet member for health and wellbeing at Wolverhampton Council, said: “It’s quite right to describe this as a crisis if staff are concerned about this.
“What I will say is that it is concerning however, that this rate is higher than others in the public sector and indeed the private sector. More investigation will need to be carried out on this and we will have to look at the figures for other trusts to determine what needs to be done.”
Leader of Conservative party at the council, Wendy Thompson, added: “Staff at are the heart of any hospital and it is only right that the trust looks to help its staff before they in some cases, literally, fall down, which they are clearly doing.”
