NHS Orkney loses 10,000 working hours through stress-related illness among staff

Over 10,000 working hours were lost in the last financial year at NHS Orkney through stress-related illness among staff.

Absences through anxiety/stress/depression accounted for 10,017 working hours lost between April 2011 and March 2012, according to the health board.

This was equivalent to 27 per cent of all hours lost through all recorded absences through sickness in the past financial year ( 36,616).

Highlands and Islands MSP, Rhoda Grant, said: “Working in the NHS can make physical and emotional demands  that provoke stress, particularly at a time of cuts in real term spending.

“ In our current health service, these have resulted in  NHS posts being shed from hospitals, vacancy freezes and overburdened colleagues being left  to continue at the front line with fewer resources.

“The figures also reflect the problems that NHS staff face in coping outside of work with the pressures of national policies of austerity upon domestic life.”