Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 2:38 pm on 29 March 2017.
Let me give you a little bit of help on that one then. The data that the Welsh Conservatives have obtained from health boards show that anxiety, stress, depression and other unspecified psychiatric illnesses affected 7,945 NHS staff members in 2015-16. Those 7,945 staff members racked up a total of 345,957 days of absence, which is equivalent to 948 years of person hours that were lost to the NHS in one year. That’s 948 years’ worth of person hours. Cabinet Secretary, I’d be really interested to know what you are going to be doing to address this issue. And, remember, that was just on mental health issues. That did not take into account absences due to other diseases, musculoskeletal conditions, or any other physical ailment.