Beware of ‘duvet day’ numbers and stop divisive slagging of civil servants

YOUR front page headline (April 30) shouted ‘Department staff clocked up 20,000 sick days in three years’.

Newspapers should be more critical of numerical information. The most fundamental law of human nature is that people will get sick.

Hidden in the report was the fact that 18,000 were clocked up in three years. That equals a constant figure of 6,000 per year. The department in question employs almost 5,000 staff.