From experience

This section contains case studies of how public sector organisations have successfully tackled health and safety and sickness absence.

• Wigan and Leigh NHS Trust
• Barts and the London NHS Trust
• Port of London authority

The Health & Safety Commission has published a series of case studies setting out the business case for good health and safety management. They demonstrate business and social benefits of health and safety improvements in a variety of organisations, including FTSE 100 and FTSE listed companies, global businesses and public bodies.

We have worked with the Home Office and Strategy for a Healthy Police Service to develop some points to think about when setting up an occupational health strategy in a public sector organisation.

If you have similar examples that could be included you can submit them via our feedback form.

Wigan and Leigh NHS Trust (5000 staff)

A study in 1993 found that the Trust was losing 44,000 hours to sickness absence at a cost of £3.9 million. A significant proportion of this was due to industrial injuries to nurses who are key staff. Manual handling as a result of patient handling was the most common cause. The Trust put in place an action plan based on:

• Risk assessment - identifying and training risk assessors and a risk assessment programme;
• Purchasing appropriate equipment;
• Staff training on manual handling.

As a result of the programme nursing hours lost due to patient handling fell from 6,700 hours in 1993/94 to 200 in 2000/01 and associated costs fell from £800,000 to £10,000 in the same period.

• Barts and the London NHS Trust (6,500 staff) [45kb]

The Trust has an occupational health unit. It advocated a programme of voluntary flu immunisation for the Trust's staff. As a result:

• Average days sick leave in the immunised group is lower by 0.8 days than the non immunised group;
• In 2001/02, 540 staff days were saved (more than 2 staff years)
• This represents a saving of £217,000 in direct and indirect costs - the total cost the initiative was £23,500.

• Port of London Authority (365 staff) [50kb]

The PLA conducted an analysis of staff absence though ill health. This showed that absence levels were a considerable drain on resources. A new and more effective absence management system was introduced (including support for staff during absences through expanded use of the PLA's occupational health service). Outcomes were:

• A 70% drop in overall absence rates (from 11-12% in 1999 to 3-3.4% in 2003);
• Numbers of staff on long term absence dropped from 15-16 to 2-3 at any one time;
• Line managers have better data on absence levels.