Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on sickness absence for mental ill health in National Health Service staff

OBJECTIVE: To explore the patterns of sickness absence in National Health Service (NHS) staff attributable to mental ill health during the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in March–July 2020. DESIGN: Case-referent analysis of a secondary dataset. SETTING: NHS Trusts in England. PARTICIPANTS: Pseudonymised data on 959 356 employees who were continuously employed by NHS trusts during 1 January 2019 to 31 July 2020. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Trends in the burden of sickness absence due to mental ill health from 2019 to 2020 according to demographic, regional and occupational characteristics. RESULTS: Over the study period, 164 202 new sickness absence episodes for mental ill health were recorded in 12.5% (119 525) of the study sample. There was a spike of sickness absence for mental ill health in March–April 2020 (899 730 days lost) compared with 519 807 days in March–April 2019; the surge was driven by an increase in new episodes of long-term absence and had diminished by May/June 2020. The increase was greatest in those aged >60 years (227%) and among employees of Asian and Black ethnic origin (109%–136%). Among doctors and dentists, the number of days absent declined by 12.7%. The biggest increase was in London (122%) and the smallest in the East Midlands (43.7%); the variation between regions reflected the rates of COVID-19 sickness absence during the same period. CONCLUSION: Although the COVID-19 epidemic led to an increase in sickness absence attributed to mental ill health in NHS staff, this had substantially declined by May/June 2020, corresponding with the decrease in pressures at work as the first wave of the epidemic subsided.