Put your own house in order – that’s the advice being given to the NHS after a report revealed it loses 10.3m working days a year through sickness absence, costing a staggering £1.7bn!
The report, carried out for the Department of Health by occupational health expert Dr Steve Boorman, calls for ‘an overhaul in the priority and focus placed on staff health’. In other words, apart from haranguing us all about smoking, drinking and our eating habits, its time the NHS took more care of its own staff.
Ben Willmott of the CIPD added his comments to those being made by many observers when he said: “There is no point in providing employees with subsidised gym membership or advice on healthy eating and exercise if they dread coming to work because they have received inadequate training, they are bullied by their manager or they are drowning under their workload. Employees who are under stress at work because of excessive workloads or long hours are also more likely to eat less healthily, take less exercise and smoke and drink more.”
I suppose that means that unless more action is taken the NHS will continue to create patients among its own staff! Bizarre!
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