A survey by the Healthcare Commission has revealed that ward nurses in England and Wales take more sick days than any other public sector staff.
Ward staff take an average of 16.8 days off sick every year – five and a half days more than an average public sector worker - at a cost of £470m to the tax payer.
The Commission said that factors such as poor job satisfaction, high workload and physical stress all contributed to “unacceptably high” sickness levels and that reducing annual sick days by 30 per cent could save the NHS £141m.
Health Commission chief executive, Anna Walker, said: “Nurses are far to important for us to ignore this.
“The causes are unclear but nurses are the backbone of the NHS and we need to do more to understand what is happening.”