HOSPITAL staff are being given psychological help and access to yoga and pilates classes to help them be fit for work.

Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust, which runs four hospitals including Fairfield and North Manchester, has brought in the measures in a bid to cut down on staff sickness rates.

A trust attendance management report published this week described the attendance rate as "poor when compared with neighbouring trusts in the Greater Manchester area and the North West."

In April, 5.65 per cent of all trust staff were off work sick and the figure climbed to almost seven per cent in January.

Of those who do not show up for work, 37 per cent say it is due to stress, anxiety or depression, while 25 per cent put it down to muscular-skeletal problems and 10 per cent say they have back problems.

Trust bosses want to turn things around by making the hospitals a better place to work as only 60 per cent of staff say they would recommend their workplaces to others.

Bosses asked staff how they could improve things and received more than 42,000 ideas, which led to a plan being drawn up called "Healthy, Happy, Here".

The trust's workforce director, Jon Lanney, said: "We recognise that staff sickness and absence levels at our hospitals are higher than average and we are working hard to reduce these.

"This plan includes a wide range of measures to strengthen staff engagement, promote health and well-being and reduce absence due to sickness.

"The trust has invested in increasing capacity of the physiotherapy service and a new psychological service for staff.

"The trust is also looking to implement a staff podiatry service and to hold pilates and yoga classes to enable staff to take responsibility for their own health, following suggestions from staff.

"Staff have told us that support such as podiatry and yoga is important to them and we will be introducing this support shortly.

"We will also be introducing a new policy and providing training to support more effective management of sickness absence.

"We expect the wide range of measures being introduced through the Healthy, Happy, Here plan will lead to a reduced level of sickness and absence at the trust over the coming months."