DOCTORS, nurses and other front-line hospital staff do magnificent jobs, often in the most emotionally-charged atmospheres.

Many work long and unsocial hours and regularly face situations most of us would find too harrowing to cope with.

Yet it is worrying to see that across the board, hospital staff in East Lancashire have taken 110,000 days off sick in the past two years, or between 10 and 11 days per year – almost double the figure for the private sector.

It is true that because of the vulnerability of patients, hospital staff are urged not to come to work if they have bugs that might be passed on.

But according to the trust, the main reasons for staff calling in sick were musculoskeletal injuries and stress. These could both be seen as problems which could be alleviated by more resources and perhaps better management.

Because of the way the system works, expensive agency staff have to be called in to fill the sickness gap anyway.

So allocating more resources to lessen the stress burden could actually prove to be financially effective.