FOI220408: Staff sickness days

Released 5 September 2022

Request:

I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the number of sick days taken by hospital staff.

Please provide the following information for the most recent 2 full years of data, broken down by department, with reasons for sickness where possible.

Assistance provided under section 16 duty to assist on 31 August 2022:

Disclosure exempt under section 40(2) [personal information] exemption of the FOIA.

Response from applicant received 31 August 2022:

Please could I refine my request by reasons for sickness – instead of department.

Information disclosed:

Please refer to the table below for the number of staff sick days by reason code.

Reported from the NHS Electronic Staff Record (ESR) system for the period August 2020 to July 2022.

Please note that where absence was due to Covid-19, sick leave may have been recorded under whichever absence category the person or manager specified at the time, as symptoms were often not the same in each occurrence.

However, the overriding majority of Covid-19 sickness absence over this period was recorded against the reason of ‘Infectious Diseases’.