Walsall Manor Hospital staff sickness on the rise
Sickness rates have risen again at Walsall Manor Hospital – as bosses vow to bring the number of people off ill down.
A meeting of board members at Walsall Healthcare Trust, which manages the hospital, heard sickness during January stood at 5.9 per cent for the entire workforce.
This was up from 5.04 per cent sickness rate at the end of October, a report presented to board members said.
The sickness rate across the financial year to date now stands at 5.04 per cent.
Mark Sinclair, the trust's director of organisational development, said the hospital was encouraging its human resources department to take a more hands on approach to bring the numbers down. Mr Sinclair, speaking during the meeting, said: "We are launching a new attendance strategy.
"People who are off sick between four and seven days are more likely to stay off in the long term.
"An effective management programme will look how we manage sickness.
"We want people to come back and to take roles within the work place.
"For people who are suffering from stress, the last place they want to be is at home worrying about their problems. We're trying to get them back into the workforce and looking at ways of working round their wellbeing.
"But there is a lot of work to do."
Further figures released to the board revealed the hospital's monthly spend on agency staff for January was £976,000.
This equates to 7.01 per cent of the total pay bill.
The totals represented a £291,000 increase in spend and a rise of 1.93 per cent compared with December.
Money spent on agency staff so far for the financial year stands at £7.1 million, the equivalent to 5.06 per cent of the pay bill, and increase of 0.35 per cent.
