A new sickness management scheme that means NHS staff in Angus are phoned every day they are off ill could be rolled out across Tayside.
The pilot project, introduced in Angus at the start of the month, was brought in after it proved effective in driving down absence rates during a trial in Lanarkshire.
The scheme will run until March, when NHS Tayside will carry out an evaluation before deciding if and when to extend the system to the whole of the Tayside health board area.
NHS Tayside decided to try the Early Access to Support for You (EASY) system in Angus to see if its success in Lanarkshire where it was a major factor in a £265,000 plan that halved the number of days taken off because of illness could be replicated.
A spokeswoman for NHS Tayside said, “A new employed support service is currently being piloted within Angus Community Health Partnership covering 1300 staff. The service, which started on October 1, engages with a staff member from their first day of absence, offering ongoing support throughout their period of absence, helping them back to health and back to work.
“NHS Tayside, in common with other areas of NHS Scotland, has been working hard to reduce staff absence rates.”
July’s latest absence rate figure for the Tayside area was 4.49%.
The EASY system was one of range of measures brought in by NHS Lanarkshire as it sought to reduce its record on staff absence.
Coatbridge-based operator SALUS, which describes itself as a UK-wide health and safety consultancy claims its service is both “seamlessly efficient and cost-effective.” It says that by staying in touch with poorly employees it can reduce the cost of absences due to illness.
An NHS Lanarkshire spokeswoman said, “Our sickness absence rates have decreased from 6.75% in September 2007 to 3.61% in April 2010. This has been achieved through a range of measures, including excellent management practice, a robust absence management policy, close partnership working between managers, human resource, occupational health and staff-side representatives and the introduction of EASY.
“This reduction in sickness absence has resulted in greater continuity of staffing, with an associated impact on quality of patient care and has also decreased bank staff and overtime costs, resulting in substantial efficiency savings for NHS Lanarkshire.”
On its website, SALUS boasts, “Prior to the introduction of EASY in 2008, NHS Lanarkshire consistently had the highest levels of sickness absence on the mainland health boards in Scotland.
“A comparison of sickness absence rates on a month-by-month basis shows that, without exception, sickness absence rates have decreased following the launch of EASY.”
Estimates of the cost of sickness absence put the figure at almost £700 per employee per year.
Photo used under a Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr user RLHyde.