NHS: Absenteeism
(asked on 30th June 2023) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the NHS staff absence rate was in each year since 2019.
Annual Data on National Health Service staff sickness absence is published by NHS England for financial years. The following table shows the annual National Health Service staff sickness absence rate between 2018/19 and 2021/22. Data for 2022/23 will be published on 27 July 2023.
Period | Absence Rate |
2018/19 | 4.21% |
2019/20 | 4.48% |
2020/21 | 4.66% |
2021/22 | 5.38% |
Source: NHS Sickness Absence Rates
NHS England also publish COVID-19 Hospital Activity Statistics, which include a daily measure of both all staff absence and COVID-19 related absences. This is not directly comparable but does show a fall in COVID-19 related absences from over 30,000 a day at the start of April 2022 down to under 3,000 at the end of May 2023.