The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Colin Mowl, dated 16 April 2007:
The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about people of working age who were off work for more than six months through sickness or disability in 1997 and 2006. I am replying in her absence. (130848)
Historically, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) collects information about people who were absent from work because of sickness or injury in the week before their interview. The answers to this question give no indication of the overall length of their sickness absence.
More recently, the LFS has been extended to ask whether respondents had been off work for illnesses caused or aggravated by work. This data however excludes non- work related sicknesses or disabilities that did not originate from the workplace. It also excludes those off work for over a year.
As a result, the information necessary to answer the question is not available from the LFS.