Critical levels of staff sickness in NHS Fife cost the taxpayer an estimated £14m last year, it has been claimed.
Branded a clear picture of a service struggling with too few people, the increase in sickness has been put down to high levels of under-pressure nursing staff suffering from stress and other illnesses.
The figure mooted by independent councillor and health board member Andrew Rodger follows a period of huge change in the acute sector in Fife which saw inpatient services transferred from Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline to the £170m new wing at Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy.
Illness cover is provided by bank and agency staff who are paid at a higher rate than regular workers, at a time when the board is trying to find £17.5m of savings to break even this financial year.
Last month The Courier revealed NHS Fife had lost 118 nursing and midwifery staff in the nine months to December and it is thought the decrease may have contributed to higher stress levels among those remaining.
Health chiefs have acknowledged sickness rates are a major issue and said they had put in place a robust policy to drive the numbers down.
They declared they are optimistic the position will improve by the end of the year.
In March, the absentee level for the operations division alone was 6.4% and for NHS Fife as a whole it was 5.3%.
Although this was only a quarter of a per cent higher than during the previous three months, it was significantly more than the 4% absence rate deemed acceptable by the Scottish Government.
Mr Rodger said a quarter of 1% equated to an extra £700,000 in sickness and calculated that across the entire year the total amount would be around £14m.
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NHS Fife said that was a ”notional figure” which used average staff salaries and did not reflect the actual cost of sickness absence. However, in a report before the NHS Fife board this week, acting director of acute services George Cunningham said different ways are being looked at to tackle the issue.
”At this level something needs to be done, not just because of cost but also the burden on the remaining staff who have to cover,” he said. ”Absence has an impact on the quality of services and the colleagues that are left behind to cover, and on our financial performance.”
David Stewart, chairman of the operations division, which manages the Victoria and Queen Margaret, added: ”This is an issue of concern. We had a very good meeting on staff governance and the outcome was we would approach the problem in a more holistic way than we had previously tackled it.
”We also agreed to look at what we could do surrounding work on patient flow in the operations division and how we could reduce stress in staff. I’m very optimistic that towards the end of the year we may in fact see some good results concerning staff absenteeism.”
NHS Fife’s human resources director Rona King said sickness rates are being taken very seriously.
”We are also looking at overall health at work to catch people before they go off sick and identify the reasons for people going off,” she said.
”I strongly believe if we can improve the health and wellbeing of staff it will have an impact on sickness absence levels. As we start to see an improvement, that improves the overall wellbeing of staff.”
Ms King added it had become more difficult to implement the previous system of bringing people back to work, which saw them being allowed to work at a slower pace than normal for a while.
”That’s now challenging because of our activity schedule and there is very little slack in the system,” she said.
Board chairman Professor James McGoldrick said: ”We do feel it sharpest in the acute service and we run the risk of a vicious circle of absence creating pressure then creating further absence.”
Fife Labour MSP Helen Eadie was critical of NHS Fife’s position, stating: ”These figures paint a clear picture of a health service struggling with under-resourcing. Nurses, doctors and other staff are very reluctant to take sick leave but sometimes things simply snap due to pressure.
”The SNP said they would protect the NHS but it is clear that the cuts in staff are damaging the front line.”