WARD nurses take more sick days than most other public sector staff, costing the taxpayer £470 million a year, according to a survey by the NHS watchdog published today.

The Healthcare Commission said in Ward Staffing that a ward staff member takes an average of 16.8 days sick leave a year in comparison with 11.3 days for the public sector as a whole. The highest rates were for unqualified ward staff who took 21.4 days sick leave a year.

The commission said that the sickness levels were “unacceptably high”, blaming them on stress, low job satisfaction, high workload and the physical nature of the job. The Royal College of Nursing also claimed that the Government’s NHS reforms were piling the pressure on relatively junior nurses. Others took time off work due to needlestick injuries and chronic back pain.

The commission suggested that hospitals were having to rely on high numbers of temporary staff to fill nursing vacancies and cover for those off sick and on holiday. It said that £141 million a year could be saved if nurses’ illness was reduced by 30 per cent.

Anna Walker, chief executive of the commission, said: “Nurses are far too important for us to ignore this. The causes are unclear but nurses are the backbone of the NHS and we need to do more to understand what is happening.” Ward nurses were absent more than social workers (16.1 sick days), police (10.4), civil servants (10), council workers (10.7), prison officers (14.7) and teachers (5.4).

The ward workforce is largely made up of registered nurses with a minimum of three years’ training, and nursing auxiliaries or healthcare assistants. The survey of 135,000 hospital ward staff in 6,000 hospital wards indicated that the proportion of budgets spent on agency staff was linked to vacancies rather than absenteeism.

Dr Beverly Malone, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “With such a high workload it is not surprising that so many nurses are sick. Absence is caused by workplace injuries, including needle injuries and back strain.”

The report said that there was no standard formula for appropriate staffing levels on wards, with trusts deciding the size of the workforce.

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