Staff at a NHS Trust missed thousands of days of work last year due to Covid-19, a study has found.

NHS Digital data shows the equivalent of 83,056 full-time staff days were lost due to sickness at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust between March and December 2020.

Around a tenth of these (8,566) were because of Covid-19, with staff worst affected towards the beginning of the pandemic.

The figures show that millions of days of work were lost nationally.

Deputy chairman of the British Medical Association, Dr David Wrigley, said: "We know the NHS went into the pandemic woefully short on staff and these worrying figures highlight how Covid-19 has made a severe workforce shortage even more desperate.

"Covid-related staff absences coupled with the significant negative impact on NHS staff mental health and wellbeing during the last year have meant more staff needing to take time off work, threatening the NHS’s very ability to provide essential services."

The North Cumbria Integrated Care Trust staff were absent for 2,944 days because of coronavirus in April, but were least impacted in September – losing 208 days.

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% between March and December.

Chief Nurse at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, Anna Stabler, said: "The pandemic has had a significant impact on our workforce both personally and professionally. Despite this, we have continued to provide essential services and that is thanks to our staff continually stepping up to cover when there have been periods of staff sickness.

"We understand and are very aware how difficult it has been for our staff over the past year. This is a situation that none of us have found ourselves in before and the challenges brought about by the pandemic affect everyone differently.

"To help support our staff we have stepped up our existing health and wellbeing support which includes a staff wellbeing network that is managed through our in-house psychology team. We have further resources available on the health and wellbeing pages on the Trust’s internal staff website, including access to our Employee Assistance Programme that offers 24/7 help and support.

"We continue to hugely appreciate the efforts and resilience of our staff.”