NEW incentives are being offered to hospital workers in a bid to reduce absence through sickness.

The opportunity to win cash will be offered to departmental groups and individual employees at the Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley NHS Trust to try to prevent staff taking sick leave.

An annual cash award will be made to any directorate or management group which achieves a sickness absence level of three per cent or less, or improves on its previous year's performance by one per cent.

The cash, between £5,000 and £10,000, will be spent on service improvements in that department, or other benefits including staff training. Individual members of staff will be eligible to enter a quarterly prize draw if they have no time off sick during the preceding year. Five prizes of £200 each will be offered to individuals in each quarterly draw.

Latest figures show that during 1998, 825 staff (about 28 per cent of employees) had no days off sick.

Elaine Baker, director of personnel and development, said there would be an overall sickness absence target of 4.2 per cent for 1999/2000.

In a report on the trust's new "revised sickness absence management strategy", she said: "Managers will conduct a return-to-work interview on every occasion following sickness absence.

"If the periods of absence reach a trigger point...a formal meeting will follow conducted by the manager with a personnel adviser present.

"The purposes of the formal meetings are....to advise the individual that their future attendance will be subject to review and that if improvement is not achieved and sustained then their employment could be put in jeopardy."

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