Stress epidemic contributes to rise in sickness absence

More workers are off sick, and for longer - with stress the major culprit, the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) revealed in its annual round up of statistics.

Last year 33 million working days were lost due to ill health, up from 18 million in 1995. And on average, sick workers were off for 23 days a year, up from 14 days in 1995.

The stress epidemic is the main reason for these increases. Stress, anxiety and depression were responsible for 13.4 million sick days, over 40% of the total. Over half a million workers reported ill health caused by stress last year, double the figure recorded a decade ago..

The worst sectors for stress were the civil service and defence, education, and health and social work.

Back pain and other disorders affecting muscle and joints accounted for another 12.3 million sick days off.

The number of major injuries remained static at around 27,500, with slips and trips the biggest cause of injury (37%). The riskiest industries were mining, water and railways, and more than seven million days were lost due to injury during 2001-02.

These figures suggest that the HSC is some way off meeting the targets for reducing fatalities, non-fatal injuries and ill-health absence by 2004 as set out in the government's "Revitalising Health and Safety" initiative.

The full report is on the HSE website at www.hse.gov.uk/statistics, as is a "highlights" report, or free from HSE Books - tel: 01787 881165.