Latest figures released by North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) has revealed that more than 25% of sick days are attributable to stress-related illnesses.
The North East Ambulance Service said its paramedics took 2,927 absence days due to anxiety, stress and depression between July 2017 and June 2018.
These figures will not come as a complete shock to emergency services / NHS personnel who are under enormous strain following the recent cutbacks to the emergency services.
This figures represents 25.87% of the total 11,310 sick days taken.
NEAS said it would “continue to support” its staff.
The average number of paramedics employed at NEAS during that time was 594, meaning each one lost an average of 4.9 days due to stress in those 12 months, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.
Caroline Thurlbeck, director of strategy, transformation and workforce, said:
“Our absence rates are reflective of the physical and mental demands placed on our hard-working staff on a daily basis.
“Alongside the rest of the UK ambulance services, we have had a number of vacant posts for ambulance paramedics over the past few years but we continue our proactive recruitment campaign which has helped to ease the pressure on ambulance crews.
“We will continue to support our staff to manage their physical and mental health and wellbeing and reduce sickness absence across the trust.”
The organisation covers Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham, Darlington and Teesside.
No figures have yet been released in relation to the impact that
It is hoped that the recently introduced Assaults on Emergency Services (Workers) Act will reduce overall the number of assaults committed on emergency services personnel.
If you work for the ambulance service / NHS and have been assaulted on duty, send us a blog regarding your experiences to: contact@emergency-services.news
All correspondence will be treated with anonymity.
If you have a story, video or one-off blog that you would like to share with us, then you can contact our team of former emergency services & armed forces personnel either through our Facebook page, via Twitter ( @ES_News_ ) or you can contact us via email: contact@emergency-services.news
If you run or manage a ‘job’ social media account and you would like us to share one of your stories then send us a tweet or a message!
If you would like to write an article that you would like us to share (it can be about anything to do with the emergency services / NHS) whether you serve in the emergency services / NHS or whether you are a member of the public that has had a good experience with the emergency services, then feel free to contact our team; anonymously if you prefer.
We are proud to act as a voice for the Emergency Services & Health Service, with over 500,000 people visiting our website each month.
Before you go...
We need your help. As former emergency services & armed forces personnel, we pride ourselves on bringing you important, fast-moving and breaking news stories which are free from the negative bias which is often directed at the emergency services by some sections of the mainstream media.
One of the reasons we started 'Emergency Services News' was because we became tired of reading badly informed stories about the emergency services which seemed only ever to highlight negative aspects of the job.
We want to be the unheard voice of the remarkable men and women who serve in the emergency services, NHS and armed forces. And with around 500k page views each month, we are getting there!
As income from ads, the mainstay source of income for most publishers, continues to decline; we need the help of our readers.
And remember, if you have a service, product or job vacancy that you would like to promote to our large readership, then you can buy advertising space in our articles.
You can support emergency services news from as little as £1. It only takes a minute. Every contribution, however big or small, is vital for our future.
Please help us to continue to highlight the life-saving work of the emergency services, NHS and armed forces by becoming a supporter.
More great comments from emergency-services.news, unfortunately not all of your facts within this piece are accurate. The Ambulance Service is NOT an emergency service it is an essential service, paid for by the NHS and not the government, which is why our renumeration package is so far behind that of the Police and Fire Services!!
The body camera trial so trumpeted by NEAS was mainly carried out by managers and very few road staff. The support they offer staff with MH issues is worse than useless. They have so many ‘projects’ to support staff, but they do absolutely zero. We are undermanned, underfunded and greatly under appreciated by management.