Health Professions: Mental Health

(asked on 26th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on (a) the mental health of NHS staff (b) the effect of stress on NHS staff in (i) each year since 2015 and (ii) since the outbreak of covid-19.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 8th December 2020

The annual National Health Service staff survey enables an analysis of self-reported trends and can be tracked back to 2015. The survey collects data on health and wellbeing.

It includes the question ‘During the last 12 months have you felt unwell as a result of work-related stress?’. The response rates for the past five years are shown in the following table:

Year

% of staff responding ‘yes’

2015

37.10%

2016

36.80%

2017

38.40%

2018

39.90%

2019

40.30%


Data on NHS staff sickness absence is published by NHS Digital includes reporting on the reason for sickness absence dating back to 2015.

The following table shows the full time equivalent (FTE) days lost to mental health related absence for NHS Hospital and Community Health Service (HCHS) staff, for the period March to February in each year since 2015.

Period

FTE days lost due to mental health related reasons

Sickness absence rate for mental health related absence as a percentage of FTE days available

Sickness absence rate for mental health related absence as a percentage of FTE days lost due to all reasons

March 2015 to February 2016

3,264,151

0.80%

20.10%

March 2016 to February 2017

3,465,678

0.90%

20.70%

March 2017 to February 2018

3,759,543

0.90%

22.20%

March 2018 to February 2019

4,206,154

1.00%

24.10%

March 2019 to February 2020

4,820,335

1.10%

25.60%


Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, a significant health and wellbeing offer accessed over 500,000 times by NHS staff, has been developed to support the psychological and physical health of staff. The offer is kept under review and gathers intelligence from existing surveys and user experience.

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