Skip to main content

Publication, Part of

NHS Sickness Absence Rates NHS Sickness Absence Rates January to March 2021, and Annual Summary 2009 to 2021, Provisional Statistics

Official statistics

Publication Date:
29 Jul 2021
Geographic Coverage:
England
Geographical Granularity:
NHS Trusts, Hospital Trusts, Ambulance Trusts, Mental Health Trusts, Regions, Clinical Commissioning Groups
Date Range:
30 Apr 2009 to 31 Mar 2021

Current Chapter

NHS Sickness Absence Rates NHS Sickness Absence Rates January to March 2021, and Annual Summary 2009 to 2021, Provisional Statistics

View all

Next Chapter

Classification of Statistics
Page contents

Summary

NHS Sickness Absence Rates NHS Sickness Absence Rates January to March 2021, and Annual Summary 2009 to 2021, Provisional Statistics

Tables 1-4 (Monthly Sickness Absence Rates by NHS England region, Staff Group, Organisation Type and Organisation) from the quarterly Sickness Absence reports are published on a monthly basis on the same day as the Monthly workforce publication. This is to enable the data in these publications to be available on a more frequent and timely basis.

NHS Absence rates in March 2021

The overall sickness absence rate for England was 4.0%. This is lower than February 2021 (4.6%) and lower than March 2020 (5.4%).

Regional and organisational type variation

The North West region reported the highest sickness absence rate in March 2021 at 4.8%, this is lower than their rate in February 2021 (5.4%). The London region reported the lowest sickness absence rate in March 2021 at 3.4%, this is lower than their rate in February 2021 (4.2%).

Ambulance Trusts had the highest sickness absence rate at 5.9% in March 2021, this is lower than February 2021 (6.9%). Clinical Commissioning Groups had the lowest sickness absence rate at 2.1%, remaining relatively unchanged since February 2021 (2.2%).

Staff group differences

Support to ambulance staff reported the highest sickness absence rate in March 2021 at 6.9% with Support to doctors, nurses & midwives and Hotel, Property & Estates staff reporting the second highest rate at 5.5% respectively.

Staff Grade reported the lowest rate at 0.5% in March 2021.

Reason for sickness absence

Anxiety/stress/depression/other psychiatric illnesses is consistently the most reported reason for sickness absence, accounting for over 452,745 full time equivalent days lost and 28.8% of all sickness absence in March 2021. This is higher than 26.7% in February 2021.

COVID-19 related sickness absence

169,783 full time equivalent days (from a total of 1,570,514 FTE days lost) were lost due to COVID-19 related sickness absence in March 2021, equating to 10.8% of all absences recorded, compared to 18.1% in February 2021.

During the March 2020 to March 2021 period, overall sickness absence rates peaked nationally at 6.2% in April 2020. However, the equivalent rate for COVID-19 reported absences was 1.9%. This is 0.4% in March 2021 with an overall sickness absence rate of 4.0%.

 

(Please see COVID-19 related absence file in the Resources section below for further information on COVID-19 reported absence).

Key Facts

Last edited: 28 July 2021 11:12 am