LOCAL NHS workers are taking less sick days than their national colleagues.
Over the past year employees working for NHS Cumbria took an average of 9.9 days off, while staff working in the Bay’s three hospitals rang in sick on 8.5 days.
Figures from the the county’s primary care trust showed stress and anxiety was to blame for more than a quarter of absences, while one fifth of workers took time off for sickness and diarrhoea.
Last week the Government-funded Boorman Review revealed that nationally, NHS staff were absent for 11.7 days each a year, at a cost to the country of around £1.7 billion.
Spokesmen for NHS Cumbria and the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, which runs Westmorland General Hospital, Furness General and the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, said a number of initiatives were in place to combat stress, including workshops and online advice programmes.
“NHS staff regularly come into contact with sick patients, and may be exposed to more illnesses than other professions. We need to consider incubation periods for contagious illnesses to ensure they are not posing an infection risk to patients by returning to work early,” he added.
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