Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Prison chiefs report ‘downward trend’ in sick days at Peterhead and Inverness this year

Inverness Prison
Inverness Prison

Prison chiefs have reported that they are hopeful of maintaining a “downward trend” in staff sickness absence rates at Inverness and Peterhead prisons this year.

The P&J reported yesterday that the number of working days lost through sickness at HMP Grampian soared by 62% to 5,968 last year.

The jump emerged in new figures despite the number of sick days having remained relatively stable at between 3,600 and 3,800 a year between 2015 and 2017.

It represented the largest one-year percentage rise experienced at any of the publicly-run prisons in Scotland in 2018.

At Inverness prison, meanwhile, the number of days lost through sickness increased by 47% from 829 to 1,218 between 2015 and 2017, although it actually began dropping again last year, when it hit 1,033 days.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) has now said that it hopes there will be further reductions at both Inverness and Peterhead when the figures for 2019 are released.

By July 24 this year, the Porterfield prison in the Highland capital had lost 543 days to sickness absence, while HMP Grampian had recorded 2,433.

An SPS spokesman said: “Happily the indication is that there is a downward trend in both establishments and we are working hard to maintain that.”

Across all Scottish Prison Service (SPS) sites, the number of days lost to sickness increased by 46% from 47,152 days in 2015 to 69,072 in 2018.

Of these lost days, the number which were related to mental health issues soared by 78% from 12,795 days to 22,714 in the period.