Published 9 November 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4607
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4607

News

Employers told to tackle work related stress to reduce sickness bill

Oona Mashta

1 London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The NHS in England, along with other employers, needs to promote mental wellbeing among its staff in a bid to cut the multimillion pound cost of days off resulting from work related stress, says new guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

The cost of work related stress, depression, and anxiety among NHS staff in the United Kingdom results in an estimated loss of about 4.1 million working days a year at a cost of £700m ({euro}780m; $1.2bn), estimates NICE.

But the problem was not just about staff taking time off, it said. "Presenteeism" (where staff feel obliged to go to work but are not in a fit state to be there, resulting in reduced productivity) was also a problem. NICE estimates that about 6.2 million working days are lost in the NHS in the UK through presenteeism at a cost of £1bn.

The guidelines . . . [Full text of this article]


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