Coronavirus caused staff at Northumbria Healthcare to miss more than 10,000 days of work last year, figures reveal. The British Medical Association say the figures – which show millions of days were lost nationally – demonstrate how the pandemic has affected a health service that was “woefully” short on staff before it even began. NHS Digital data shows the equivalent of 113,569 full-time staff days were lost due to sickness at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust between March and December. Around one in nine of these (11,950) were because of Covid-19, with staff worst affected towards the end of the year. Around 2.5 million days were lost in the NHS across England due to the virus, giving an overall sickness absence rate of 4.7 per centbetween March and December.