Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 10 July 2023 to Question 191949 on NHS: Absenteeism, what assessment he has made of the increases in the NHS staff absence rate since 2019; and what is the highest recorded NHS staff absence rate.

NHS England publish data on sickness absences monthly. The latest data shows that the total staff absence rate as of February 2023 was 5.00%. This is lower than the peak in January 2022 when the rate was 6.69% but slightly higher than the pre-pandemic rate of 4.51% in February 2019.

The pattern of high sickness absence in the National Health Service in 2022 is consistent with sickness absence rates across the economy. Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows that in 2022, the national sickness absence rate for the United Kingdom was the highest it has been since 2004.

The high level of sickness absence is at least partly caused by high levels of COVID-19 in 2022. ONS data shows that the official reported estimate of the percentage of the population testing positive for COVID-19 peaked between 27 March and 2 April 2022, at 7.6%, whilst the latest data for 7 March to 13 March 2023 shows a rate of 2.7%. Further information can be found at the following link:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/datasets/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveyheadlineresultsuk