Sickness levels among staff at Avon Fire and Rescue have shot up and are now the second highest in the country.

An annual health and safety report to the fire authority revealed 1,738 days were lost to illness last year, nearly triple the number the year before.

Now fire bosses have been told that the latest figures are even worse, and that the fire service has the second worst sickness levels out of 27 other fire brigades in the UK.

Presenting the latest figures at an Avon Fire Authority meeting on Friday, performance manager Simon Flood revealed 3,381 days have been lost to illness so far this year.

The latest data are for the first half of the 2018/19 financial year so cover the six months to September 2018.

That means fire service staff have already taken nearly twice the number of sick days in the first half of this year as they did in the whole of the previous 2017/18 year.

Mr Flood told members of a fire authority committee: “We benchmark against most other fire services.

“Unfortunately, we’re the second worst performing with the second highest level of sickness.”

There are 50 fire and rescue services in the UK but only 27 agree to voluntarily share sickness benchmarking data.

The latest data for Avon Fire and Rescue show mental health issues remain the biggest problem, accounting for more than a quarter of the sick days so far this year.

More than two-thirds of the sick days were taken by a handful of individuals with a long-term illness.

Members of the authority’s performance review and scrutiny committee expressed concern at the level of long-term illness.

Bath and North East Somerset councillor Mark Shelford asked assistant chief fire officers Simon Shilton and Rob Davis to consider employing a mental health nurse and a physiotherapist on staff full-time to try and reduce the level of short-term and long-term illness and injury.

Mr Shilton and Mr Davis said extra measures were already being put in place, including bringing in health and fitness advisors and a wellbeing officer and introducing the same trauma risk and incident management model used by police.

Last year’s figures showed that half of all work-related illness incidents were related to work and home life stresses and post-traumatic stress disorder.

One employee had been suffering workplace stress for a reported 18 months.

Mr Davis said: “When responding to emergency calls, our firefighters are never fully aware of exactly what the danger is they are running towards.  

“Equally they don’t fully understand and cannot predict how the experiences they encounter can affect them.  

“Whether responding to a road traffic collision, a fire or providing aid in someone’s greatest time of need, these events all have the power to affect an individual’s mental health and result in post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Our professional fire control operators who are the first to receive emergency calls and our corporate services colleagues who provide vital support to the operational response, equally feel the stress of the situations they encounter.

“As an organisation we fully acknowledge the challenging situations our staff can and are presented with.  

“We know our staff may be exposed to traumatic incidents which have the potential to cause long-term psychological ill-health or which have an impact on emotional wellbeing.  

“As a service we are committed to supporting staff and continue to look at ways in which we can do this.  

“Our people are our greatest asset and we committed to investing in our staff to ensure they feel supported with their mental health, wellbeing and welfare.”

Each day lost to illness costs the service about £150 in salaries.

Injuries and staff illness cost Avon Fire and Rescue more than £283,000 last year.