26th March 2010 £555m saving by reducing staff sickness in the NHS is the tip of the iceberg

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Alistair Darling’s pledge to reduce staff sickness in the NHS by “up to £555m” is a significant understatement of the potential savings that could be made, according to absence reduction specialists FirstCare.

FirstCare work with 17 NHS Trusts across the UK and have already reduced absence levels by an average of 26% in the first 12 months of operation. If such a service was implemented nationally this would equate to a potential saving of £760m in year 1 alone, with compound absence reductions in years 2 and 3 leading to a total saving of £1.2bn per year within 3 years.

Aaron Ross, CEO of FirstCare says: “For years many management and HR teams within NHS Trusts have been accepting of the high levels of absenteeism and tackling it has not been seen as a priority. This is because it is commonly accepted that absence rates in the NHS are significantly higher than those in the private sector. However, this is often attributed to the type of work involved.  So while this may be the case for a nurse who is working at the front line in a job that exposes them to disease and extensive manual handling, there is little reason why an administrator in the Finance department of an NHS trust should have any more absence than that of an equivalent role in the private sector.

“If NHS trusts are serious about reducing absence, then they will work through the barriers that are sometimes presented by HR and ensure that absence is recorded, monitored and reduced by using third party administration. FirstCare offer a completely risk free solution, if absence isn’t reduced by at least 10% in the first year the service doesn’t cost the Trust a penny.

“Third party absence management has been proved to be the most successful way of reducing absence in large organisations. Companies like British Gas, Coca-Cola Enterprises and forward thinking NHS trusts have been using the FirstCare service for years with fantastic results.

“I hope that the Boorman review and the now, heavily publicised, £555m target reduction in NHS absenteeism will spur some progressive trusts in to looking at the very simple solutions in the market place to effect the necessary change but given the previous reluctance to adopt a guaranteed service it could be that very little changes.”