To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many staff in his Department were on long term sick leave in each of the last five years. [109248]

We have defined long-term sick leave to be —absence from work due to sickness for a period of ninety days and over. The information requested is shown in the table.

Financial Years	Number of staff on long sick term leave
1998–1999	49
1999–2000	59
2000–2001	71
2001–2002	47
2002–2003	22

Staff members whose absence spans from one year to another are counted again in the second year.The Department has agreed with Cabinet Office and Her Majesty's Treasury, public service agreement targets for reducing its levels of sickness absence. The Department aims to bring absence levels down to 6.8 days per staff year by 2003.