THE report on sickness rates within Bury MBC (November 28) certainly packed in the statistics, but the underlying message throughout seemed, to me at least, to imply that our actions were to no avail.

I accept that you referred to how we had tackled long-term sickness, how we had reviewed our occupational health service and halved waiting times, and how we had invested in physiotherapy services which resulted in a 9 per cent fall in related absences.

But by taking the "snapshot in time" you didn't report how we had achieved a 5.5 per cent reduction in absence rates since March 2003; that we reported nearly 4,200 fewer days absence in the same period, and how we are well on course to achieving the government target of a 20 per cent reduction in sickness absence by 2010.

More importantly the reports referred to in the article identified the proportion of sickness absence which was supported by a GP's certificate. Depending on the employee group involved, "doctors' notes" account for between 66 and 85 per cent of all sickness, which is a cause for concern.

GUY BERRY,

director of personnel.