This year has seen an undeniable amount of change, but perhaps one unanticipated lesson that may have come out of the Covid crisis could actually be for our benefit.

Yesterday in a joint session of the Health and Social Care and the Science and Technology Committees, the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, said that workers in the UK were ‘peculiarly unusual and outliers’ for going to work when feeling unwell.

In the UK it is anticipated that around 80% of workers continue to go to work when feeling unwell, with the average number of sick days being taken from work standing at around 4.4 days.

This modest number is in stark contrast with some of our European neighbours, with French workers averaging around 17 sick days per year and Dutch workers averaging around 8 days.  However, there are surprises much further afield too with the USA workforce averaging around 7 days and Australian workers taking around 9.7 days.

Mr Hancock was quoted as saying ‘Why in Britain do we think it’s acceptable to soldier on and go into work if you have flu symptoms or a runny nose, thus making your colleagues ill?’  Mr Hancock was not just referring to the current Coronavirus pandemic but with a view to looking at our future health as a nation and seeking testing with other ailments such as seasonal flu. 

As our understanding of how viral illnesses are transmitted has been magnified this year, so too has perhaps our appreciation of the need for the body to rest during periods of illness as well as the effects that transmission can have on the more vulnerable in our society.  So, could the lessons learnt from this year actually help us pave a new way of viewing illnesses and presenteeism and how they impact our ability to work? 

In his statement, Mr Hancock stated ‘I want this massive diagnostics capacity to be the core to how we treat people in the NHS so that we help people to stay healthy in the first place, rather than just looking after them when they’re ill’.

So, whilst it is undeniable that this year has proved to be challenging, almost to the very limits, there are positives that can hopefully can be implemented across the board.  By ushering in a new era of how our collective health is viewed, calculated and valued; perhaps this will see a change to how we value our employees and embrace diagnostic testing at the core of a healthy working balance.

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Carrie Plummer - Editor & Content Manager