Working in understaffed NHS is leaving nurses sick and ‘broken’, leaders warn

Working in an understaffed NHS is leaving nurses sick and “broken”, according to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).

A poll for the union and professional body found workforce shortages are causing nightmares and panic attacks, while nurses feel forced to keep working when they are ill.

Official NHS figures for June – the most recent available – show the overall sickness absence rate for NHS staff in England was 4.9%, around one in 20 members of staff.

Among nurses and health visitors, the figure was 5.3%, while it was 5.7% among midwives and 5.4% among ambulance workers.

Overall, 29% of full-time equivalent days that were lost to sickness among NHS staff in June were due to anxiety and/or stress, including 28% among nurses.

The RCN said it was receiving dozens of calls every week to its advice line from staff suffering burnout and needing help for short-staffed wards.

A survey of more than 20,000 UK nursing staff for the RCN found two thirds (66%) admitted to working while ill multiple times a year, up from fewer than half (49%) in 2017.

Stress was the biggest cause of illness given by staff (65.1%), up from 50% in 2017.

The RCN said its analysis showed that the numbers reporting working while sick and citing stress as the leading cause were both at an eight-year high.

Meanwhile, the poll found 70% of nurses are working in excess of their contracted hours at least once a week, with 52% of those receiving no extra pay.

One NHS staff nurse in England told the RCN they developed a chronic illness related to stress but could not leave work “due to the department being overwhelmed and overstretched and not wanting to add to that”.

A staff nurse in an independent care home said they dreaded “going to work knowing we’d be short staffed” and will “inevitably have to work over my hours, unpaid, just to get everything done”.

An NHS community nurse in England said dealing with the amount of patients and paperwork was like “fighting fire with my hands tied behind my back”.

Another nurse in England said her ward was so unsafe she felt scared to go to work, while another reported the high dependency stroke unit they worked on was short of almost half its registered nurses.

A nurse working in social care in England said staffing levels were so low that they could not leave to use the toilet, with only themselves and one healthcare assistant on shift to look after more than 100 residents.

There are currently more than 25,000 nursing vacancies across the UK in the NHS alone, the RCN said.

RCN general secretary, Professor Nicola Ranger, said: “Nursing staff are being driven to ill health from working in understaffed and under-resourced services.

“And what’s worse, many feel they cannot take time off for fear of leaving their colleagues at the mercy of brutal pressures. This simply isn’t sustainable.

“Nursing staff strive to do their best for every patient on every shift, but they are left with the impossible task of caring for dozens and sometimes over a hundred at a time.

“This is hugely detrimental to patient outcomes, but there also needs to be action to address the devastating impact on staff themselves. The reality is they’re not breaking; many are already broken.

“These findings are yet more cold, hard evidence that there are simply too few nursing staff to meet growing demand.

“New and urgent investment is desperately needed to grow the nursing workforce, ensuring staff are able to work in a safe environment and that patients get the best care.

“This must be accompanied by the introduction of safety-critical nurse-patient ratios in all health and care settings.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We hugely value the work of talented nurses, and through our 10-year health plan we are taking action to improve conditions for the overworked and demoralised workforce we inherited.

“That includes rolling out high-quality occupational health support, introducing new staff standards to make sure flexible working is more widely available, and cracking down on violence, racism, and sexual harassment in the workplace.

“We are also providing better job opportunities for qualified nurses and midwives with a new graduate guarantee to make sure thousands of new posts are easier to access, helping to further reduce the burden on existing staff.”