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Publication, Part of

NHS Sickness Absence Rates July 2020, Provisional Statistics

Official statistics

Publication Date:
26 Nov 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 Jul 2020

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NHS Sickness Absence Rates July 2020, Provisional Statistics

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Classification of Statistics
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Summary

NHS Sickness Absence Rates July 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 July 2020

The overall sickness absence rate for England was 3.9%. This is down from 4.0% in June 2020 and slightly lower than July 2019 (4.2%).

Regional and organisational type variation

The North West region reported the highest sickness absence rate in July 2020 at 4.7%, falling slightly from 4.9% in June 2020. The London region reported the lowest sickness absence rate in July 2020 at 3.5%, remaining unchanged from June 2020.

Ambulance Trusts had the highest sickness absence rate at 4.7% in July 2020, with the rate remaining unchanged from June 2020. Clinical Commissioning Groups had the lowest sickness absence rate at 1.8%.

Staff group differences

Hotel, Property & Estates staff reported the highest sickness absence rate in July 2020 at 5.5% with Support to doctors, nurses & midwives and Support to ambulance staff reporting the second highest rate at 5.4%.

Hospital Practitioner/Clinical Assistants reported the lowest rate at 0.2%, which is a slight increase from 0.1% in June 2020.

Reason for sickness absence

Anxiety/stress/depression/other psychiatric illnesses is consistently the most reported reason for sickness absence, accounting for over 483,000 full time equivalent days lost and 32.4% of all sickness absence in July 2020. This is up from 31.8% in June 2020.

COVID-19 related sickness absence

Over 85,000 full time equivalent days (from a total of 1,491,000 FTE days lost) were lost due to COVID-19 related sickness absence in July 2020, equating to 5.7% of all absences recorded, compared to 9.8% in June 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%. London region reported the highest COVID-19 related sickness absences as a proportion of all FTE days lost through absence in both March (26.0%) and April (40.0%). In May, June and July, the highest COVID-19 related sickness absence was reported by the South East at 25.8%, 13.6% and 8.0% respectively. (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 8:08 am