It’s a provocative title for a blog isn’t it? I hope it’s encouraging you to read further. Who knows, you may even be surprised and shocked by what I have to say.
Sickness absence rates remain stubbornly high in the NHS but they are moving in the right direction: the latest figure across the service is 4.2 per cent. This improvement has come about as a result of more sophisticated strategies, policies and practices, a greater focus on health and wellbeing and support for healthy workplaces. Improvements include a focus on avoidable muscular skeletal injuries through improved manual handling training, better health and safety compliance, addressing mental health issues such as stress and being a mindful employer.
There is much to boast about, and these are all great progressive approaches. But have we focused enough on the sensitive subject of abuse? I’m not talking about abuse in the sense of staff taking ‘sickies’. I’m talking about domestic abuse. And it’s far more prevalent than you think.
The NHS has the largest female workforce in England, standing at some 700,000 women. Research into domestic violence shows that it affects an astonishing 1 in 4 women (yes you read that right – 1 in 4) and 1 in 6 men in the UK. Could this be one of the reasons for our high absence figures?
What could be the impact of domestic violence in organisations’ staff attendance? According to the Corporate Alliance Against Domestic Violence (CAADV):
- The overall cost of domestic violence to the NHS, including caring for patients who are victims, is £1.39 billion a year
- Victims are likely to be late to work an average of five times a month and need to leave early
- Victims take twice as much sickness
- Victims will often be subjected to abuse at work (phone, email) so have reduced productivity
- Two women a week and one man a fortnight are killed. This can have enormous impact on friends and family at work.
I believe it’s time we raised our game in this area. As an employers’ organisation we have set up a section on our website including draft policy and the signs for employers to look out for with staff they think might be affected. Check them out and you will see this area of work is about as far from pink and fluffy HR as you get.
NHS Employers is currently working hard to raise this matter as a key service and business issue. It is sensitive but we need to address it head on. We owe that to the victims.
Your organisation may want to have a look at CAADV and see how you can become involved. You could start by joining them and gaining access to the wide range of advice and tools that they can provide.
And perhaps it time to check if abuse is a contributor to your sickness absence.
We will be addressing these issues too when we run our free NHS Employers webinar on domestic violence on 16th May.
Clik here to view.
