Blackpool hospital staff sickness rates at 'record high'

Currently around 8.5 per cent of staff are absent due to being unwell, with 4.9 per cent made up of non-Covid illness including stress.

Kevin Moynes, joint director of human resources at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, told a board meeting, around 620 staff “were unavailable at any one time” while the sickness rate “is the highest ever seen.”

Despite that, Blackpool still has one of the lowest sickness rates in the North West, with some other hospitals reporting 12 per cent of staff being off poorly.

Staff are all being encouraging to have a flu vaccination with more than half of frontline health workers at the Blackpool Trust vaccinated so far.

Measures to recruit more staff have proved successful, with currently around 170 vacancies for nurses compared to around 300 vacancies in recent times.

Mr Moynes said 100 overseas nurses would be joining the hospital ranks between now and December.

Nine new consultants had been employed since January, with a further 10 in the pipeline, but recruitment remained “extremely challenging, particularly around critical care.”

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