Figures show staff absences in NHS organisations

The latest data, released yesterday, showed that in October employees at Queen Alexandra Hospital, in Cosham, took 3.9 per cent of available sickness days.

In total, Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs QA, had the equivalent of 198,078 sickness absence days available for the month and only 7,780 of those were taken.

Elsewhere in the city, Portsmouth Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) had a lower percentage at 2.3 per cent.

Overall, out of 2,384 sickness absence days, staff were only ill for the equivalent of 56 days.

South eastern Hampshire CCG had the lowest percentage of organisations in the area at just 1.4 per cent. In total they took the equivalent of 30 days off out of 2,165.

Fareham and Gosport CCG did not meet the staff requirements to submit data.

Year-on-year, the figures for all three organisations in October was less than in 2015.

Nationally, the percentage of sickness absence days taken was 4.3 per cent.

The data, from NHS England, also shows healthcare assistants and other support staff took the most sickness days, followed by ambulance staff.