Worcester City Council bosses are considering the idea of a 24-hour helpline to help staff combat stress.

The proposal is being considered as a shared service with all the other councils in Worcestershire. It would be staffed day and night by people trained to answer calls from exasperated workers.

The telephone line would cost £4,500 to introduce and is only part of a package of new measures to help combat sick leave.

Finance bosses responded to a report revealing sick leave is higher than average by allocating up to £30,000 to deal with it.

Whether all proposals are funded depends on how flush council coffers are later in the year.

The proposals include £500 left aside for alcohol gel to make sure workers hands are clean after shaking hands with the public.

The authority also wants to spend £2,500 on new health promotion booklets to help educate staff about what to do to stay healthy.

It also proposes to spend £2,000 on training to deal with bullying.

The ideas represent the city council's response to a detailed 28-page report concluding that staff absence is a problem.

The report found the average city council worker is absent 13 days per year - compared to an average of 10 in other authorities. In the private sector the average is seven.

Council leader Coun Stephen Inman said: "The figures at the moment are very much estimates.

"We don't know which of the individual proposals will go ahead yet until we have looked at the budget in more detail, but we know that these ideas are things that probably should happen.

"At the outset of this report we realised, like with any local authority, there is a problem to be addressed."

Since the report was made public in December official sick leave levels within the Worcester City Council has reduced - although by how much is unknown.