Hospital sick leave shocker

Over 90,000 days in last 3 years

University Hospital Monklands staff have taken more than 90,000 sick days in the last three years.

The Advertiser gleaned statistics from NHS Lanarkshire t h rough a Freedom of Information request which shows an 11 per cent rise in sickness at the hospital from 2016/17 to 2017/18.

Monklands staff took 92,754 sick days, more than Hairmyres’ 89,515 days but less than Wishaw, which recorded the highest number of absences at 121,003.

Other health centres in the county took a total of 435,255 days sickness combined.

Norman Provan from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said that nurses are burning out across the country due to stress, while NHS Lanarkshire insist the health and wellbeing of staff is “important” to them and that sickness absence is monitored.

Following a similar trend to Monklands, Hairmyres saw an 18 per cent rise in absences from 2016/17 to 2017/18 whereas sick days at Wishaw dropped by three per cent.

Up to July 25 this year, there have been 5597 absences at Monklands compared to 6751 absences at Wishaw and 5437 at Hairmyres.

Alarmingly, the most common reason for absence across the board is mental health problems.

Anxiety, stress, depression and other psychiatric illnesses accounted for 162,410 days sickness at the county’s hospitals and health centres in the last three years.

The figures increased steadily from 51,151 in 2015/16 to 52,402 in 2016/17 and rose by 12 per cent the following year to 58,857.

Other common reasons recorded were musculoskeletal problems ( 72,849); gastrointestinal problems ( 49,132); injury and fractures ( 38,683); back problems (35,241) and cold, cough and flu (34,936).

A total of 2677 sick days were taken for infectious diseases.

A recent member survey on safe staffing carried out by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) revealed that over half of respondents’ (51 per cent) last shift was not staffed to the level planned.

And 53 per cent said that care was compromised as a result.

RCN Scotland associate director Mr Provan hit out at the sickness figures.

“The pressures on nursing staff are huge – demand for health and care services is rocketing and the number of staff is just not keeping pace with the number of patients they’re expected to care for,” he said.

“This is coupled with high vacancy rates.

“Nurses are working longer than their contracted hours and through their breaks. All this means that nurses are burning out as a result of stress and having to take time off.

“Health boards know that staff are reporting increased stress as a result of a lack of resources and need to do more to tackle this.

“While fully- resourced occupational health teams to provide early support for staff who are too stressed to work might help, what would make a real difference is having the right number of nursing staff in the right place to care for patients.

“The Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Bill is an opportunity to address some of the workforce challenges facing nursing teams, safeguarding nursing in Scotland for the future.”

NHS Lanarkshire director of human resources, John White, added: “The health and wellbeing of our staff is important to us.

“We offer a vast range of support, including physical and mental health services, to help our staff to both remain in work and return to work.

“We recognise that mental illness, both personal and workrelated, is a significant reason for absence.

“As such, we have prioritised enhanced support for staff experiencing mental ill-health.

“We continually monitor sickness absence in accordance with the national standard and pro-actively introduce support to improve performance and staff wellbeing.

“Our most recent performance, June 2018, is 5.26 per cent. This was 1.26 per cent above the national standard.”