Hospitl staff hit sickness high

More than 300 workers at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital called in sick during January – one of the highest levels ever reported.

Health chiefs say staff were told to stay at home if they had any symptoms of the winter vomiting bug Norovirus, which swept through hospitals and led to four wards being shut at New Cross. For the first month of the year The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Hospitals Trust, which has nearly 4,700 staff, recorded an average sickness rate of 6.6 per cent.

The facilities department, which includes workers such as porters and cleaners, had a higher rate of 7.9 per cent.

Division one of clinical services, which includes departments such as pathology, radiology, head and neck and general surgery, reported a sickness rate of 7.2 per cent for the month – up from 5.6 per cent in November.

The figures were revealed yesterday at a meeting of the board of directors of the hospitals trust, which runs New Cross. Director of human resources Denise Harnin told the meeting the sickness rate figure was among the highest she had reported.

"We advertised to staff to remain away from work for two days if they had some degree of the winter bug," she said.

"In infection prevention terms this is highly laudable, but if we run with that we may have to expect sickness levels to be higher than before."

Staff at the hospital have also been under increased pressure in recent months with a surge in emergency admissions – which in January was 10 per cent up on the year before.

But over the next few weeks around 40 new nursing staff will be taking up their posts, including graduates from the University of Wolverhampton.