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Publication, Part of

NHS Sickness Absence Rates August 2020, Provisional Statistics

Official statistics

Publication Date:
22 Dec 2020
Geographic Coverage:
England
Geographical Granularity:
NHS Trusts, Hospital Trusts, Ambulance Trusts, Mental Health Trusts, Regions, Clinical Commissioning Groups
Date Range:
30 Apr 2009 to 31 Aug 2020

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NHS Sickness Absence Rates August 2020, Provisional Statistics

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Classification of Statistics
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Summary

NHS Sickness Absence Rates August 2020, Provisional Statistics

Highlights

Tables 1-4 (Monthly Sickness Absence Rates by NHS England region, Staff Group, Organisation Type and Organisation) from the quarterly Sickness Absence reports are published on a monthly basis on the same day as the Monthly workforce publication. This is to enable the data in these publications to be available on a more frequent and timely basis.

NHS Absence rates in August 2020

The overall sickness absence rate for England was 3.9%. This remains unchanged from July 2020 and slightly lower than August 2019 (4.1%).

Regional and organisational type variation

The North West region reported the highest sickness absence rate in August 2020 at 4.7%, remaining unchanged from July 2020. The London region reported the lowest sickness absence rate in August 2020 at 3.3%, remaining unchanged from July 2020.

Ambulance Trusts had the highest sickness absence rate at 5.2% in August 2020, which is slightly higher than July 2020 (4.7%). Commissioning Support Units had the lowest sickness absence rate at 1.5%.

Staff group differences

Support to ambulance staff reported the highest sickness absence rate in August 2020 at 6.0% with Hotel, property & estates staff and Support to doctors, nurses & midwives reporting the second highest rate at 5.7% and 5.6% respectively.

Hospital Practitioner/Clinical Assistants reported the lowest rate at 0.5%, which is a slight increase from 0.2% in July 2020.

Reason for sickness absence

Anxiety/stress/depression/other psychiatric illnesses is consistently the most reported reason for sickness absence, accounting for over 472,000 full time equivalent days lost and 31.8% of all sickness absence in August 2020. This is slightly down from 32.4% in July 2020.

COVID-19 related sickness absence

Over 60,800 full time equivalent days (from a total of 1,488,000 FTE days lost) were lost due to COVID-19 related sickness absence in August 2020, equating to 4.1% of all absences recorded, compared to 5.7% in July 2020. During the March to July 2020 period, overall sickness absence rates peaked nationally at 6.2% in April. However, the equivalent rate for COVID-19 reported absences was 1.9%. (Please see COVID-19 related absence file in the Resources section below for further information on COVID-19 reported absence).

Key Facts

Last edited: 22 June 2021 8:09 am