THE high incident of sickness among stressed-out staff of Worcester City Council is costing more than £250,000 each year.

Now, stress-relief training, access to physiotherapy and counselling are all to be introduced after the health review, which ranked city council employees the most sickly in the county.

The latest health and staff attendance analysis shows that the council averages 12.9 sick days a year per full-time employee - a four per cent rise on 12.4 in 2002/03.

Figures from the same year show Malvern Hills and Bromsgrove council workers average 12.1 days off, Redditch 11.6, Wychavon 11.4 and Wyre Forest the healthiest with 10.1 sick days.

Worcester City councillor Dr David Tibbutt, chairman of the working party, said: "We are still in the process of doing some of our analysis and are taking this in a very positive fashion.

"Our aim is to improve the wellbeing of the staff.

"Some of our staff are under terrific pressure and we have to make their lives as comfortable as possible."

The report found:

lSick days are most commonly taken on Fridays

lEmployees sited job dissatisfaction as the most likely cause of high sickness

lMost sickness absence is genuine

lThere was no evidence of bullying among staff.

Coun Pamela Clayton, who was also on the working party, added: "This review tells us what we need to do and we need to put it right. Our officers deserve it."

Stomach problems and sickness caused a quarter of all absence, while colds, flu, hayfever and headaches covered another quarter.

Stress and depression made up five per cent, with the rest chiefly made up of back, chest and throat problems. A raft of 22 measures will now be introduced to tackle the issues and attempt to cut the council's sick days down to 8.3 per employee per year. The information was being presented to the policy development committee today.