BOORMAN REVIEW ! what a load of b------- , it"s easy to solve, stop paying them sick pay while they are off, problem solved overnight, & don"t tell me i am wrong at 72 i have known a lot of public sector workers (and still do ) & lots of them have private lists of whose turn it is to be off, so that not to many are off at once.

mr. pulltheotherone.

About right, my neighbour is one fat lazy sickness claiming freak who works for the NHS based from home. She is forever going out shopping, having friends round for coffee, and always moaning about how hard she works, NHS should be renamed NHSG = Never Had it So Good.

Always remember ex girlfriends mum who was a nurse used to mark her calender with 2 different colours for days off.She did this so she knew which ones were to be used as sick days and which ones were ligit.
As for the food reference i do not believe that we eat that differently to southerners as reported as Tesco and Mcdonalds are everywhere.

I remember the NHS in the North West very well. It was good to work there at first. The management were like the rest. They were nurses who understood the staff and the job to be done. They were human and good to work with and for. When the chips were down their sleeves were rolled up and they were at the rock face with us. Then the organisation began to change. It became so that nothing was ever good enough. New managers came who said we were doing it all wrong and proceeded to apply pressure to do it their way, which was all well and good but the 'correct way' changed again when the manager changed and we were 'doing it all wrong' again.
We had 'buzz words' which seemed to change every week. Standards...all well and good but for the models we had to follow; nursing models (ditto); mission statements and many other changing fashions. We spent years writing for the sake of meeting targets for fashions. Talking of 'meeting'...the number of meetings one had to attend shot up through the stratosphere at a rate inversely proportional to their relevance and usefulness. Patients became a handicap (can I still use that word?) to the functioning of the ward. We were even told that we could not laugh with the patients as we were 'laughing at them', and treating them with caring and affection was strictly not done! The sad thing was that what was so important one month had no relevance the next and could be ignored and pushed to one side as another 'buzz word' began to gain importance. It became a time of harrassment from management (not all managers, but many) and nurses were no longer permitted, it seemed, to nurse. We spent our working time just trying to out-survive the lastest pillock filling the managers job because, if they did not like you, they made your position miserable. It was a time of 'policies' to be written, change for the sake of change with little apparent thought about the implications...we gained mixed sex wards! It became a time of 'the biggest and loudest gob was right'.
Well, folks, you reap as you sow. Tough!

"A spokeswoman for NHS North West said: “Sickness absence trends in the north of England, for all types of employment, tend to be higher than those in the south of the country.”
This was because the population in the north was ‘generally poorer than in the south of the country’."
what nonesense! my hearts bleed for the poor doctors oop north.
Sickness is higher in the public sector because people swing the lead and get away with it

Well yes the north is in general much poorer than the south,it always has been,but what the hell has that got to do with having more time off sick?More likely we are just that bit more used to throwing the odd sickie after a tanked up weekend or even more likely our work ethic just isnt that good.

Why am I not surprised?

NHS North West is working to implement the Boorman Review – which recommended last year that the health service should concentrate on staff well-being rather than just illness.

Its always someone elses fault ,give us a break and at least have the common decency to turn up for work.

Again lets bang the 'we all hate the public sector' drums. Can I just point out that front line NHS staff are TOLD not to come into work if they present with any type of vomiting or gatric problems in case of starting a chain of events where noro virus runs riot in hospitals and clinics. This would also help if members of the public would stay away if presenting with any of these symptoms too! This article does not state what proportion of absence was admin or clinical staff which I would find interesting. Also, clinicians do tend to be ill more often as funnily enough, we treat ill people and are only human and can contract illnesses.

I was deadly with Flu at the end of November, and I mean proper flu where you can't even walk properly because you are that weak. I somehow managed to drag myself to work, even though we have this stay away policy, because I was terrified of my nursing manager who isn't the most understanding of bosses. I ended up collapsing and being sent home as a consequence. I was off for nearly a month, gained a secondary chest infection and had to go on a nebuliser as I ended up in severe respiratory distress. Was that me being a lazy public sector leech?

The trend previously was to take pens and paper for perks. Now they're taking sickies instead. What would be the value of a health worker becoming sick as they would breach their title?

This was because the population in the north was ‘generally poorer than in the south of the country.
So in a round about way, we should send our sick to the South to receive better care. Bit of a slap in the face of the previous government policies to cater for all in health matters. I thought seeing the majority of the North supports Labour, they would receive the benefit being voters.

Probably need to get rid of all those ill patients - then there will be less of a chance for the doctors and nurses to be ill, although of course I'm being sarcastic, surely if you come into contact with ill people, your bound to catch something from your patients especially if your an overworked and undervalued NHS worker, who will probably get sacked if you bi*ch and moan to the press, about how crappy your job is.

am not surprised lol...when they get full pay whilst on the sick