Mental health sick days for NHS staff surge – and cost more than £460m in a year

Mental health sick days cost the NHS almost half a million pounds as staff anxiety and stress levels haved skyrocketed.

Costs have almost doubled compared to before the pandemic from £279 million to £468 million.

The sickness data shared with The Independent by GoodShape, an employee well-being and performance analysis company, shows the number of staff sick days increased in 2022 to 12 million from 7.21 million in 2019. That is despite the overall number of people working in the NHS increasing from 1.2 to 1.3 million.

The overall cost to the NHS of absences for the five most common reasons – which includes mental health – increased to a “staggering” £1.85 billion from £1.01 billion between 2019 to 2022, according to figures from GoodShape.

Covid was still the most common reason for staff sickness last year, according to the analysis, accounting for 4.4 million lost days, while mental health was a close second driving 3 million days off due to illness.

Pat Cullen, chief executive and general secretary for the Royal College of Nursing said in response: “These figures are shocking but not surprising. With 47,000 vacant nurse posts in England alone, the pressures on staff are unrelenting.

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Source: The Independent, 8 February 2023