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Publication, Part of

NHS Sickness Absence Rates January 2021, Provisional Statistics

Official statistics

Publication Date:
3 Jun 2021
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 Jan 2021

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NHS Sickness Absence Rates January 2021, Provisional Statistics

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Classification of Statistics
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Summary

NHS Sickness Absence Rates January 2021, 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 January 2021

The overall sickness absence rate for England was 5.7%. This is higher than December 2020 (5.1%) and higher than January 2020 (4.8%).

Regional and organisational type variation

The North West region and East of England region reported the highest sickness absence rate in January 2021 at 6.3%, this is higher than their rates in December 2020 (6.0% and 5.0% respectively). The South West of England region reported the lowest sickness absence rate in January 2021 at 5.1%, this is higher than their rate in December 2020 (4.6%).

Ambulance Trusts had the highest sickness absence rate at 9.2% in January 2021, which is higher than December 2020 (7.1%). Clinical Commissioning Groups had the lowest sickness absence rate at 2.5%.

Staff group differences

Support to ambulance staff reported the highest sickness absence rate in January 2021 at 10.5% with Ambulance staff reporting the second highest rate at 8.9%.

Consultants reported the lowest rate at 1.7% in January 2021.

Reason for sickness absence

Anxiety/stress/depression/other psychiatric illnesses is consistently the most reported reason for sickness absence, accounting for over 488,500 full time equivalent days lost and 21.9% of all sickness absence in January 2021. This is slightly down from 26.0% in December 2020.

COVID-19 related sickness absence

637,734 full time equivalent days (from a total of 2,231,693 FTE days lost) were lost due to COVID-19 related sickness absence in January 2021, equating to 28.6% of all absences recorded, compared to 18.4% in December 2020. This is close to the peak of 30.6% in April 2020.

During the March to January 2021 period, overall sickness absence rates peaked nationally at 6.2% in April. However, the equivalent rate for COVID-19 reported absences was 1.9%. This is 1.6% in January 2021 with an overall sickness absence rate of 5.7%.

 

(Please see COVID-19 related absence file in the Resources section below for further information on COVID-19 reported absence).

Key Facts

Last edited: 2 June 2021 10:28 am