Publication, Part of NHS Sickness Absence Rates

NHS Sickness Absence Rates April 2020 to June 2020, Provisional Statistics

Official statistics

Publication Date:: 22 Oct 2020
Geographic Coverage:: England
Geographical Granularity:: NHS Trusts, Hospital Trusts, Ambulance Trusts, Mental Health Trusts, Regions, Clinical Commissioning Groups

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Classification of Statistics

Summary

NHS Sickness Absence Rates April 2020 to June 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 June 2020

The overall sickness absence rate for England was 4.0%. This is down from 4.7% in May 2020 and slightly lower than June 2019 (4.1%).

Regional and organisational type variation

The North West region reported the highest sickness absence rate in June 2020 at 4.9%, falling slightly from 5.6% in May 2020. The London region reported the lowest sickness absence rate in June 2020 at 3.5%, down from 4.4% in May 2020. Ambulance Trusts had the highest sickness absence rate at 4.7% in June 2020, down from 5.3% in May 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 June 2020 at 5.8% with Support to doctors, nurses & midwives reporting the second highest rate at 5.7%. Hospital Practitioner / Clinical Assistant reported the lowest rate at 0.1%, which remains unchanged from May 2020.

Reason for sickness absence

Anxiety/stress/depression/other psychiatric illnesses is consistently the most reported reason for sickness absence, accounting for over 475,000 full time equivalent days lost and 31.8% of all sickness absence in June 2020. This is up from 28.3% in May 2020.

COVID-19 related sickness absence

146,850 full time equivalent days (from a total of 1,498,000 FTE days lost) were lost due to COVID-19 related sickness absence in June 2020, equating to 9.8% of all absences recorded. This is compared to 18.9% in May 2020, 30.6% in April 2020 and 15.9% in March 2020. With the exception of Staff Grade, all staff groups reported an increase in COVID-19 related sickness absence between March 2020 and April 2020. During the March to June 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 and June, the highest COVID-19 related sickness absence was reported by the South East at 25.8% and 13.6% respectively.

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