Nurses Prescribe Reduction in Absence for Council

Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) reduced its sickness absence rate by equivalent of 3 working days per employee over the last 12 months.

The annual sickness absence rate was higher than the average local government rate of 10.9 days. Determined to reduce its absence rate, RBH thoroughly reviewed its approach. Behind the new system is a ëday 1í absence reporting procedure from Active Health Partners.

RBH employees must now report all absences to Active Health Partnersí nurse contact centre, where a nurse offers confidential medical advice and agrees with the employee an expected return to work date. The manager is immediately notified of the absence by email. The nurse will agree a time with the employee to make a follow-up call to check progress and offer further medical advice.

The service also allows authorised managers to access a secure website where they can view real time reports on sickness levels within their teams or departments, together with reports which allow them to look at trends and patterns of sickness.

The housing organization which was set up by Rochdale Council to manage its 15,000 properties, inherited high sickness absence levels of 17 days a year for each employee when it was established in 2002. It was the first public sector organisation in the country to adopt this innovative approach to managing absence.

Business Support Director, Gareth Swarbrick comments, From our review, the clear thing that came through was that the best way of [dealing with] absence was to tackle it from day one and make sure employees were getting good health advice immediately when they became ill. [It was also important] for managers to have accurate information as to when employees were likely to be backî.

He added that reporting absences to trained nurses has meant fewer employees were tempted to exaggerate or make up illnesses. Swarbrick said: ìWhen an employee phones to report an absence, if they try to pull the wool over the nursesí eyes, theyíre going to be found out. From the figures that weíve seen, I think thatís definitely happened.î

Less tangible benefits of this new approach to managing absence and health include the reduced stress on staff having to cover for absent colleagues and improved service to customers.

For further information on AHPís Health Advice and Absence Recording Service please contact 020 8834 3990 or visit our website: