Hardly a week goes by without frenzied news and comment devoted to the NHS. During August, a raging debate has straddled the Atlantic, as America wrestles its healthcare demons. Back at home, battle commenced this week over NHS workers’ sickness rates, revealed in the interim report of the NHS Health and Wellbeing Review. But whatever the news, entrenched pro- and anti-NHS camps soon convert it to ammunition in their never-ending war of words. As the Telegraph put it in its headline, the report exposes an NHS workforce of either ‘Heroes or Skivers’. There are few shades of grey in the NHS debate.
Thrown into the fire of that partisan struggle, the headline figures of this review of the health of 1.4 million NHS employees inevitably fuelled the flames. At 10.7 days per year of sick leave, NHS employees outstrip the public sector average (9.7 days/yr) and, more importantly from the perspective of the 60-year-old political wrangle over the NHS, the private sector (6.4 days/yr). Supporters of what remains one of Labour’s most significant legacies point to the physically and emotionally demanding nature of healthcare and its anti-social hours to explain the figures. For critics, on the other hand, such high levels of absence reflect a tendency for public services to squander resources, and their employees to shirk duty.
Whilst recognizing the innate exigencies of working in healthcare as one potential cause, the report also identifies some surprising factors. Longer periods of employment within the NHS are associated with more sick leave. Similarly, women have higher levels of absence. The reasons behind these patterns are anyone’s guess.
But the meat of the report is its analysis not of the nature of healthcare or NHS employees, but of their employers. Too many NHS organizations are characterized by intolerance towards the needs of staff, with managers exerting pressure to remain at work despite illness or injury rather than seeking to help towards recovery.
At a strategic level, pitiful sums are spent on occupational health, which is, at best, reactive to illness, a long way from the pro-active, preventative service that the report recommends. Sighting examples of good practice from both private and public sectors, the reviewers set out how managers must reform their attitudes towards staff wellbeing if they are to reduce the sickness that currently deprives them of some 10 million working days annually.
So, should this report be chalked up as a victory for either pro- or anti-NHS lobbies? Well, there are clearly acres of room for improvement in a service which should be not just average, but an exemplary employer, for the benefit of staff and patients alike. But there is much in the report that managers from across the economy could also learn from. In the end, this small skirmish leaves battle lines unchanged, media attention having already moved onto new ground. NHS employees, on the other hand, will hope that the report that triggered a brief public storm will have a more lasting effect on the outdated management culture that it exposed.