FOI25-288 Staff Sickness
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI25-288 Staff Sickness
- Request Date
- 08 Jul 2025
- Response Date
- 05 Aug 2025
- Information Requested
I would like to request the following information under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act (2002). For each month of 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17, 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26 (most recent):
- The number of staff working hours.
- The number of working hours lost to staff sickness absence.
- The number of working hours lost to staff sickness absence due to stress. (For clarification, if ‘stress’ is not available as a separate category please provide the name of the category it falls under and the total number of absent hours registered under this category).
- Response
The wellbeing of our hardworking staff is a key priority for the Service, and we have put additional measures in place and increased support over the last year in line with our Health and Wellbeing Strategy. We have also been working in partnership with key hospital sites to reduce delays in patient handover.
The data provided only goes as far back as 2019, information held before this is held on a legacy system that cannot be retrieved. It is for this reason I have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 to the information from 2015-2018, as information not held.
Please see the attached sheet detailing the information requested above.
Important Information to Consider when Interpreting this Data
- The information provided is inclusive of ALL staff within the Scottish Ambulance Service
- An employee may be counted in more than one year. For example: if employee is absent from January 2019 to 31 May 2020, they will be counted in the figures for 2019/20 and 2020/21.
- For Q3, staff sickness is recorded as sickness reason 10. Stress/Anxiety/depression.
- An employee is counted in a year if they had an absence due to anxiety, stress or depression of any length of time in that year.
Point to note - We take the mental health of our staff very seriously, which is why we have developed a robust programme to support them. Managers work closely with staff to encourage them to report any concerns about their welfare and we provide assistance and funding for staff seeking professional counselling services and occupational health services.
The Scottish Ambulance service has and continuously reviews a varied range of support tools aimed at staff in relation to Mental Health – related illnesses.
- Response Documents
