Council bosses say 25 per cent of days lost through employee sickness have been clawed back after rates dropped dramatically during the pandemic – but heart and mental health problems among staff increased.

They were the key findings from a report to Conwy council’s finance and resource scrutiny committee on Monday and showed the authority estimates it will claw back the equivalent of more than 33 years in employee work time in just one year.

Head of corporate HR, Phil Davies, told councillors 2020-21 looked on course to be the authority’s lowest ever in terms of full-time equivalent work days lost to staff sickness.

However staff sickness rates in the last full financial year to April 2020 had increased on the previous year by 4 per cent.

The unexpected results on sickness absence during the pandemic since April were tempered by an increase in days lost to mental health and cardiovascular problems.

Speaking about sickness absence since April Mr Davies said it was on target to be the best figures the council had ever posted but warned staff were feeling the pressure.

He said: “There are very genuine senior management concerns about employee burn-out. It cannot go on.”

Mr Davies outlined how his department was estimating there would 11,000 fewer days lost to sickness this year, compared to last, the equivalent more than 33 people taking a full work year off.

“It’s nothing short of remarkable,” he told the meeting.

In 2019-20 the number of sick days lost per full-time employee equated to 10.43, up from 9.98 the previous year.

The projection for this financial year was just 7.17 days per member of staff, if the October figures were included in the calculations.

Five departments had not posted any sick days whatsoever since April, he added.

A total of 297 Improvement Notices were issued during the 2019-20, an increase of 19 on 2018-19 – and 17 of 25 services matched or bettered the council estimate of 9.4 days per full-time employee.

The worrying trends since the pandemic began were the rises in sickness caused by cardiovascular problems and mental health issues.

In 2019-20 almost 691 days were lost due to cardiovascular issues but there had been 606 days lost since April, meaning bosses predict a 75% increase on heart-related sickness up to March next year – or more than 1,300 working days (almost four working years).

Last year the council lost 778 working days to mental health issues but was expecting a 30% increase in this financial year, with more than 1,000 days lost.

Mr Davies also revealed 50 of the county council’s 5,200 staff had tested positive for Covid-19 during the pandemic, with six off work now because of the virus. At its peak 12 members of staff were off work at the same time.

Mr Davies said comparisons with other councils’ performance couldn’t be made because data had not yet been released by the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA).