Fitness drive cuts fire service sickies
The number of sick days taken by staff at Staffordshire Fire & Rescue Service has fallen after a drive was launched to improve their health and fitness.
Bosses appointed 'health and wellbeing co-ordinator' from the NHS last year to tackle rising absences and health 'champions' have been appointed within departments to encourage colleagues to exercise more and look after their health.
In 2013/14 there were 3,706 shifts lost due to sickness compared with 4,016 the year before - a 7.7 per cent drop.
Figures show that the main reasons for absence continue to be joint problems and mental health issues, however there has been a drop in absence related to mental health from 25.6 per cent in 2012/13 to 13.6 per cent in 2013/14.
The co-ordinator has been brought in to draw up plans on what needs to be done to tackle staff sickness. One method has seen a health and fitness advisor rolling out a fitness assessment programme for all staff. This includes support to prevent musculo-skeletal problems such as joint issues before they develop.
A report by the service's director of people Judith Dorran states: "The service is undertaking proactive activity in the area of wellbeing and physical fitness which it is anticipated will impact on these figures and we will continue to monitor and take action as appropriate."
The average number of sick days taken by workers has dropped from 6.39 in the year up to March 2013, to 6.23 days the following year.
The number of days lost by uniformed staff - which includes the ranks of station manager and above - has plummeted by 43 per cent from 185 in 2012/13 to 104 the following year.
And sick days among firefighters, crew managers and watch managers dropped from 2,270 to 2,015. But support staff took 1,587 days off ill over the last financial year - up from 1,561 the year before.
Some 52 per cent of all workers' absences were long term - over 28 days - in 2013/14, compared with 55 per cent the previous year.
The report adds: "The service is undertaking proactive work in the area of health and wellbeing and has developed a strategy and action plan which addresses the key categories of sickness absence.
"It is encouraging to see that sickness absence in relation to mental health has decreased which may be explained by the proactive work being undertaken around wellbeing.
"During 2013 wellbeing resilience training was rolled out across watches and departments by the wellbeing co ordinator on secondment from the NHS.
"We have also established a group of wellbeing champions across the service to co-ordinate and communicate wellbeing activity in their areas. We have re-run the wellbeing survey during August and the analysis of this will then inform our priorities for the strategy for the forthcoming 12-18 months."
