Table 8. Calculation of hours worked per annum, Occupational Therapist, 2019.

Days/Hours	2019	Notes & Sources
Number of working days per year	252 days	The number of working days in a given year is calculated by deducting total weekend days in that year from 365 days (or 366 in a leap year) ( DPER, 2019). For example, 2016 was a leap year and there were 105 weekend days giving a total of 252 working days in that year.
Deductions: Annual leave entitlement, estimated sickness absence days	36 days	The total number of days worked per annum is calculated by deducting the professional’s annual leave entitlement and estimated sickness absence days from the number of working days in a given year. Annual leave entitlement for selected grade codes (e.g., allied health professionals) are detailed by the HSE ( HSE, 2009a; personal communication with HSE, 04/02/2021). Leave entitlements for nurses and other grades (e.g., social care workers) are covered by national agreements ( HSE, 2014) and a number of data sources have been used to identify leave entitlements for these grades including the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation ( INMO, 2020). Deduction of sickness absence days is consistent with the PSSRU methodology whereas the HIQA and DPER guidelines on economic evaluations do not make any provision for sickness absence days. Brick et al. (2015) estimated the number of sickness absence days based on the national target for sickness absence of 3.5%. The PSSRU estimates the number of sickness absence days using data from the National Health Service (NHS) on sickness rates for different staff categories ( Curtis & Burns, 2019). In this database, absenteeism rates for HSE staff working in community services, disaggregated by staff category, are applied to total working days after annual leave days have been deducted ( HSE, 2017; HSE, 2018; HSE, 2019a; HSE, 2019b) 14 .
Total days worked per annum	216 days
Total hours worked per annum	1,601 hours	The number of hours worked per week are based on specified contracted hours. Working hours for public servants were revised most recently in the 2013 Public Service Stability Agreement (the ‘Haddington Road Agreement’) with the standard working week for public servants at 35 hours per week increasing to 37 hours (e.g., allied health professionals, HSE, 2009b), and for those on 37 hours per week increasing to 39 hours (e.g., nurses and midwives) ( Labour Relations Committee, 2013) 15 . The number of hours worked per week are divided by 5 to give the total number of hours worked per day for each grade code. The number of days worked per annum are multiplied by the number of hours worked per day to give the total number of hours worked per annum. The estimated total number of hours worked per annum are assumed to be standard across all employees within the selected grade code.