MEGHAN Hindley’s article “Counting costs of stress at work” (Echo, Nov 4) addresses the more limited topic of absence attributed to stress in some of our local public service areas, as distinct from the more general subject of sick absence in the workforce as a whole.

If the figures given relate only to stress absence then the total sick absence days lost figures are somewhat higher.

Making a comparison of the figures given with national statistics isn’t possible because the latter are normally given as percentages of the total available time.

This enables comparison because we know that three per cent is very good, six per cent is unsatisfactory and anything above nine per cent requires urgent management attention. The article highlights a number of good points, not least that days lost is coming down in many areas and that senior management have a clear focus on the problem and have deployed initiatives to counter it.

There is, however, no mention of dealing with the difficult problem of misuse of sick absence, which is inevitably present in all such systems, and only one mention of the need to involve trade unions in all stages of the development of improvement measures.

Such development can be very successful in yielding significant additional human resource and achieving better workforce morale and motivation.

Brian Whittingham

Maiden Castle Road

Dorchester