STAFF going sick because of stress and depression cost Worcestershire's NHS hospitals a massive £10m.

Now workers may be encouraged to improve their attendance records with the lure of free holidays and the threat of the sack if they take too many "sickies". In 2004 sickness cost the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust - which was recently named the third worst off in the country, with a £23.8m debt - an estimated £7m in lost time and work and £3 million for cover for absent staff.

The proposals to reduce absenteeism were put to the trust board by director of human resources Jeff Crawshaw on Thursday when he revealed the true extent of the sickness problem.

Figures show that the most sick days were taken by maintenance staff (13.29 per cent), followed by nursing staff (6.07 per cent).

The figures are calculated by the monthly hours lost to sickness absence divided by the number of

Continued on Page 2

contracted hours for the month.

Medical staff took the least sick days with a percentage absence of just 0.42 per cent.

Of the 4,700 staff, 3,565 called in sick with the main reasons given as stress, depression, back pain and repetitive strain injury.

"Although the trust is below the national average for acute trusts, the associated costs are considerable," Mr Crawshaw said.

"Further action is therefore needed to reduce absence, tackle the regular absentees and, importantly, reward those who attend regularly."

Trust chief executive John Rostill said: "We are in the process of discussing with union representatives a robust and realistic action plan to manage the sickness and absence figures. The scheme we are looking at does include some incentives.

"We had more than 1,000 people last year who did not have a single day off sick and that is encouraging.

"There are pockets of superb performance but there is more that we could do."