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Brits need to take more sick days in the future, Matt Hancock says
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Brits should stop ‘soldiering on’ when they’re sick and continuing to go to work, according to the health secretary.
Speaking at a joint session between Health and Social Care and the Science and Technology committees, Mr Hancock said people in the UK were ‘peculiarly unusual and outliers’ for still going to work when sick.
He made the comments referring to the reduced numbers of respiratory diseases turning up at the NHS while people have been getting tested and staying home to protect others.
He said the fact that Brits think its ‘acceptable’ to soldier on and go to work with flu symptoms or a runny nose and therefore make colleagues ill is something that is ‘going to have to change’.
Adding that the ‘global-scale diagnostics capability’ should continue to treat people in the NHS for other illnesses like flu once the pandemic has passed.
He told MP: “Afterwards we must use it, not just for coronavirus, but everything.
“I want to have a change in the British way of doing things where ‘if in doubt, get a test’ doesn’t just refer to coronavirus but refers to any illness that you might have.
“Why in Britain do we think it’s acceptable to soldier on and go into work if you have flu symptoms or a runny nose, thus making your colleagues ill?
“I think that’s something that is going to have to change.
“If you have, in future, flu-like symptoms, you should get a test for it and find out what’s wrong with you, and if you need to stay at home to protect others, then you should stay at home.
“We are peculiarly unusual and outliers in soldiering on and still going to work, and it kind of being the culture that ‘as long as you can get out of bed you still should get into work’. That should change.
“This year there’s been far fewer respiratory and other communicable diseases turning up in the NHS.
“I want this massive diagnostics capacity to be core to how we treat people in the NHS so that we help people to stay healthy in the first place, rather than just looking after them when they’re ill.”