- Conference
- 2004 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 5 January 2004
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that despite a wide range of positive initiatives to recruit staff there is still a shortage of staff working in the NHS. Positive recruitment initiatives only partly meet the challenging needs of the NHS. Retention of staff is equally if not more important in maintaining service delivery and continuity of staffing skills and expertise.
The NHS loses the equivalent of 8.2 million days each year through sickness absence. A significant proportion of this number, 40%, is caused by back injury, investment needs to be made to increase support to staff that are unwell.
Government initiatives such as the “Back to Work” Campaign aimed at raising awareness around the issue of back injury and the national target of reducing overall sickness absence by 30% by the end of 2003 were a positive step in addressing the problem of sickness absence.
Many staff, though keen to return to work are faced with prolonged absence due to delays in access to our-patient appointments and treatment. Consequently, the period of sickness is prolonged and the impact of their absence on the service only compounds the situation further.
Conference believes that the way forward is to enable staff to be fast-tracked back to work by positive action.
Conference believes that action is needed to aid recruitment and retention but more importantly improve service delivery as there would be more staff at work instead of being off sick.
Conference calls upon the Service Group Executive to urgently commence discussions with the Department of Health to facilitate arrangments which can be taken to rehabilitate staff so that they can return to work and sickness levels can reduce.