Flu jabs for Plymouth City Council staff to cut £6m sickness bill
FLU JABS are going to be offered to staff at Plymouth City Council as one of the methods being used to drive down a sickness bill of more than £6million.
Figures show the council lost an average Full Time Equivalent of nine days a year to staff on sick leave.
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In a bid to reduce the figures to six days – which would take the number below the average of 8.5 days – the council has brought in a number of measures including the option for a flu jab.
It is part of an occupational health service brought in to tackle the problem.
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Within the service staff are offered a 24/7 counselling service, telephone triage, work-based assessments and health surveillance.
Councillor Peter Smith, deputy leader, who is also responsible for human resources, democracy and governance, said: "The number of days are reducing, we are managing the situation now and where we found people have underlying problems we are managing that with occupational health and treat them with the dignity they deserve.
"What we need to do is cut down the short term absence, particularly with our frontline workers who deal with the public regularly. We are offering staff the flu jab this will hopefully cut down on the number of days this way. We realise people will still get colds and sniffles but it will hopefully prevent staff from getting full blown flu.
"We have got to keep driving it down, we cannot tolerate high sickness levels when the tax payer is footing the bill so it needs to be as low as possible.
"The message now is we will be fair but firm."
Flu jabs for staff are expected to roll in through a programme this Autumn.
Figures released last year show that the council-wide average days lost per FTE due to sickness for non school staff had fallen from 12.88 days in November 2010 to 10.12 days in October 2011. However, the level for all staff remains above the average of 8.5 days standing at 9 days when compared with other local authorities.
But now the council are aiming to bring the number down to six days.
A Plymouth City Council spokesperson said: "Tackling staff sickness is one of the Council's priorities this year and having measures in place to support the health and wellbeing of our staff is one way of doing this.
"We do have a number of services where staff come into contact with a number of people and this is how viruses spread."
Comments
by olddogbreath
Thursday, July 05 2012, 3:30PM
“The trouble with sick time is that it is rewarding negative behaviour. No one can help being sick, but,on return to work, you get a return to work interview and other time off the job.
Those who attend regularly get taken for granted and no reward.
Go to an industry where no sick pay is given, except statutory and see the sickness rate fall. It is not right but it makes a stark contrast.
However, pay on attendance bonus and a lower rate for sickness ( costs are less, no petrol needed to go to work) and again sickness falls. Reward the positive not the negative”
by circles1
Thursday, July 05 2012, 10:40AM
“they're talking about council good for nothing scivers who'll no doubt take days off to get over having the flu jab”
by maxine711
Thursday, July 05 2012, 10:35AM
“maybe if the staff could distinguish the difference between a common cold and actual flu, so many people say they have flu when it really it a cold - i've had flu twice in my 40 yrs of life and it doesn't last a couple of days, its at least 2 weeks, sometimes longer - a flu jab wont stop the common cold, so a waste of money anyway.”
by NICKERS
Thursday, July 05 2012, 10:02AM
“How unfair is that. These employees rely on sickie days to boost their holiday entitlement.
What is the world coming to!”
by timplymouth
Thursday, July 05 2012, 9:55AM
“Some people treat sick days as a top up to their holiday entitlement”
by jimbo2010
Thursday, July 05 2012, 9:04AM
“IMO
1. This will cost a lot of tax payers money to get people to go to work to do the job they are employed to do.
2. Most will decline the jab anyway. They can't force you to take it.
3. The jab does not guarantee you won't get the flu.
4. There will be a sharp decline in flu cases and a sharp rise in D and V.
In summary this won't work, the sickness level will stay the same but you will have the added bill for all of those jabs. I also wouldn't be surprised if there is some sort of bill for consultancy on this. Try the Bradford Factor, you can tailor it and for genuine cases you won't have a problem and you will see skiver sickness come down. Google it...”