AIBU to think too many people being off work is causing the country to fall apart?

[Tanyasfootspa]

Posting here out of sheer frustration really. Is it just me or does it feel like everything is grinding to a halt because half the workforce is off sick.

I’ve had three appointments cancelled this week alone — GP, dentist, and my son’s speech therapy. All due to staff absences. Tried to phone the council about a bins issue (don’t even get me started) and was on hold for 47 minutes before being cut off.

Meanwhile, I go to work, rain or shine. Loads of my colleagues are off with colds, stress, or just “taking a mental health day.” I’m not doubting genuine illness, but surely there’s a tipping point where too many people being off means things just don’t function?

Schools are short-staffed, NHS is beyond crisis, trains are delayed, post is late. It’s not just inconvenience — this feels like serious breakdown of basic services.

AIBU to think the UK is being held together by a rapidly shrinking group of people who are actually showing up?

Something’s clearly not working. It feels like there’s no backup anymore. No resilience. Just everything falling to pieces when someone sneezes or feels stressed.

Anyone else noticing this or am I being unfair?

Yeah, local councils are an exception with numbers falling. Overall they are at record highs.

Schools are short-staffed, NHS is beyond crisis, trains are delayed, post is late. It’s not just inconvenience — this feels like serious breakdown of basic services.

Agreed, but a lot of these jobs are not attractive due to poor pay. TA pay is awful & I'd put anyone I know off teaching because it's a miserable job with little reward.

The NHS & care service lost a shit tonne of staff after Brexit and will lose more thanks to Starmer's new immigration rules.

The post is late because the government use private contracts to run sorting offices, who regularly use cheap, poorly trained agency staff (hence all of those birthday cards that arrive opened and robbed of cash).

Both schools and the NHS need trained staff - not the unemployed foisted upon them. Farage's 'genius' idea of making the unemployed work in care to get their benefit money works well for him because his Granny won't have some untrained scally coming into her house, will she?!

As for those who are scamming the system for benefits, what we're really asking is for GPs to refuse to sign people off on MH grounds, but that's asking them to take quite the risk. How would you fancy refusing a patient help then them topping themselves, or worse, hurting others? The NHS would advise all to seek help before reaching the point of mental crisis but that means GPs taking people at their word when they say they are struggling. It's a conversation that needs to happen between the government and medical profession but I doubt there is an easy solution or it would have been taken already by one of the governments of the last 20 years.

The country is on it's knees primarily due to Brexit, Covid, both of which will take YEARS to recover from. Add to that an ever aging population and, well, big changes are needed.

There is no magic wand, though.

People going off sick is often caused by the higher management imposing unrealistic targets on their staff, which causes staff to go off sick
The remaining staff are then under more pressure and then they go off sick.
This is the general rule though, there will always be people that absolutely take the piss but in my experience they are in the minority

Thanks, it’s just so unfair.
15 years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had treatment/ surgery; back to work.

2023/2024 Metastic BC AND a different cancer discovered. Hysterectomy/ treatment; back to work.

2024: The sarcoma cancer reappears in a different part of the body. Been off 3 months already. It won’t shrink. Looks like ill health retirement is coming my way. Former teacher, then TA.

I wish your son’s partner well, going forward.

Maybe it comes down to job satisfaction.

I have decided not to extend my fit note and return to work end of next week.
Really hope talking to callers will take my mind off things and hope very much to keep up I can remain impartial even though I’ll want to be anything but.

Not bad for someone who really thought they hated their job at one point and this went on for 6 months whilst I got up every day for it, but since fought twice for it. (just don’t ask)

I have a good employer. Some don’t.

I do hope I get to walk to my local co-op on bank holiday Monday before I start back 💙💚

I think it's more likely that a lot of companies aren't replacing staff that leave and are expecting the rest of the work force to take that work on. Resulting in it being more noticeable when staff are off.

With regards to the phone line issue, during covid companies were using the bare minimum staff, and customers were okay with it - so they haven't returned to a full work force!

Also staff absence could be for anything, ill health, holidays bereavement.

I work for the nhs and at any minor inconvenience the majority of people stick a sick line in. The sickness culture within the nhs is unbelievable, it’s far too easy to stay off sick with full pay.
I think Covid and furlough made a lot of people care less about working.

Surely the NHS doesn't pay full pay for sick forever?

I had months off one of my jobs, and I went back on a phased return. There is no way I could have immediately gone back full time. I would have ended up going off sick again.

I agree with you, sadly the depts you mention (NHS / anything government), is woefully understaffed, to the point of less than a skeleton crew running the show.

I know some people who work for the NHS and they can’t get the staff as the pay is rubbish, those who do join are not always the best and the good ones get so stressed they are either sick or leave. I’m not talking about Dr’s and Nurses (although these are too), this is the Support Staff network who may do the bloods, lab tests, admin etc. Many feel awful for wanting to leave as of the sheer volume of people relying on them often for life saving treatment, patients get stressed and start shouting and the staff are doing their best. Something needs to change from the top. Minimum wage with near part time hours it’s not enough to sustain a family or pay for wrap around care / holiday clubs. So that’s a good % of the population.

GPs earn good money, but their workload is shocking due to lack of GPs. So they want p/t and patients shout at them through frustration. In fact anything public facing inc retail is honestly blooming hard work.
anything gov related the support staff need more money and more of them. Taxes go up to pay for it all? Yes it needs it, but there is often little public appetite for this.
teachers were given a good payrise last year, then schools had a 20% cut in funds.. from Labour.

Usually six months full pay then six months half pay. Then they accrue loads of annual leave during the time off so are barely in when they return.

I'm off today and was off yesterday due to a very painful gallbladder attack. The NHS won't take it out though. I can't afford to go private. I've had this problem for 15 years, but because there's no actual stones on the scan, they won't do anything. Oh well.

My health also gets worse every time I have covid. I don't qualify for a vaccination though. Oh well.

@Miley23 but if they go off again after 8 months does the sick pay restart?

Strangely enough the self employed seem less likely to be off sick.

My husband is self-employed, of course it's pointless to get signed off from the GP, but he definitely would get a disciplinary if he worked where I did. (3% or 3 different occasions)

I think the ‘woke’ society and be kind meant no one ever gets told off or criticised - staff member would lodge a grievance - so lazy people just take advantage.

That old chestnut. Try harder.

Yabu. There's too many shit people in work that can't do their job who are blindly following instructions without actually engaging their brain. They're the idiots cocking it up.

Part of the problem is too many paid sick days. If you didn't get paid people would be at work. My old place is 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay

I dropped to half pay for a couple of months. I was not ready to return to work. Had it been no pay, I would still not have been ready.

Accountants don’t like waste
having enough staff to cover absences means sometimes you have too many - cost cutting

trouble is that running tight means people get more stressed and exhausted and more likely to stay off when ill

everyone believes there is saving to be made, everyone believe we can have the health service of Europe for half the cost but it’s false economy

people get sick and they can’t get treatment and things get worse and worse

as a country we can’t seem to manage the idea that investing in health ans mental health saves money overall

Not to mention your phased return to work days as well.

No slack in the system either. So it breaks.

Its none of the Governments fucking buisiness if they are living off their own savings and pensions Who the fuck do they think they are...........got far too used to telling people what to do during Covid and liked it too much.

Actually quoting the OP because FFS.

Maybe people are going off sick because they're knackered because of short staffing in most places.

Because running on low numbers of staffing for prolonged periods means has a cumulative effect. You never catch up. You end up doing more and more. And eventually someone goes off sick because they're knackered. So it gets worse. By the time they come back someone else is knackered and off they go.

Usually management don't consider sorting the staffing levels out in the first place. Instead it's a sickness issue. People should just get on with it.

People don't just go off sick for a laugh. There's usually annoying processes, warnings, meetings as well as often losing money as most places pay SSP.