Statements and claims we make
Across our marking we make a series of statements and claims about waiting times and data that relates to the number of people who work in the UK, who they work for and evidence as to sickness rates. We think its only reasonable that we cite our sources, please note we have reviewed the links and try to cross reference the data we cite, however take note responsibility for the content the content they contain:
“16 million people work for a small or medium business in the UK which is 60% of all private sector employment.”
This data is widely cited, and the figure we use is an underestimate:
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06152/SN06152.pdf
https://www.money.co.uk/business/business-statistics/small-business-statistics
“148.9 million working days were lost due to sickness or injury last year"
The figure is given by the Office of National Statistics and may now be an underestimate as the data reports are lagged by several years:
"at a total cost of £103 billion.”
The source for this is an IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) report which was published in 2024, the data was from 2023 and so we think is now likely an underestimate.
News summary as follows (which also discusses issues around presenteeism and what the authors feel people can do):
You can find the original paper here (the link is in the footnotes):
"employee sickness costs the average employer £3,600 per employee."
We have calculated this figure by taking the Government reports of public sector employment - 28.1 million, and dividing this into the cost estimates given by the IPPR above then rounding down.
“6.2 million people are waiting for a specialist appointment on the NHS.”
The data we cite measures referral to treatment times, i.e. patients who have been referred for consultant led elective care, there are various official sources for this, and of course the statistics vary month to month. This is the data output for February last year and also a link to the BMA with their own analysis, the number we report is individual patients rather than the overall wait list:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/2025/02/waiting-list-falls-as-nhs-staff-treated-record-numbers-last-year/
"30% of UK workers would be unable to survive on statutory sick pay for more than a month"
This data originates from an Aviva research report, whilst it's dated now (the original article is from 2011) we haven't traced any later/subsequent research: