Pressures inside the NHS have become so severe that the equivalent of a week off work was taken by every single one of the health service’s 350k nurses last year due to stress, anxiety and depression, analysis of new NHS England data shows.
NHS England’s latest tranche of sickness absence data shows that across 2023, nearly 7 million (6.88) days were lost to illness from nurses and health visitors working in the NHS.
However, analysis by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) shows that for nursing staff, stress-related illnesses accounted for nearly a quarter (24.3%) of the days lost to sickness. This is more than double the prevalence of any other kind of illness, with cold or flu being the next largest at 12.0%.
Stress-related days of sickness are so high among nursing staff that it is equivalent to every single one of the health service’s 350k nurses and health visitors taking an entire week off work last year because of stress, anxiety or depression.
NHS England data shows that for nursing staff, the proportion of sick days attributed to stress, anxiety, depression and other psychological illnesses increased from 21.0% in 2022 to 24.3% in 2023.
The RCN says a chronic workforce crisis is driving the pressure on staff. Thirty-four thousand nursing posts are unfilled across the NHS in England, leading to consistently understaffed shifts. The College is calling upon NHS leaders and the government to stop normalising poor mental health among staff and bring forward an action plan to tackle dangerous levels of stress and anxiety, including measures to boost recruitment into the nursing profession and ease the pressure on staff.
The health and safety regulator, the Health and Safety Executive, must also ensure organisations are meeting their legal duties to assess and mitigate the risks from work-related stress, the RCN says.
The sickness absence data followed the prime minister's recent speech on ‘sicknote culture’, an intervention the RCN described as "deeply offensive to a profession hit hard by long COVID and a spiralling mental health crisis."
Financial pressures are also driving the crisis in staff wellbeing, according to the RCN. It says that the typical nurse has seen their pay fall 25% in real-terms since 2010, exposing them to the cost-of-living crisis. Almost half (43%) of nursing staff who responded to an RCN cost of living survey said that their financial concerns are impacting their mental health.
RCN aded that 'dire working conditions' are helping to drive widespread problems in recruitment and retention across the nursing profession. The number of applicants choosing to study nursing has collapsed 26% over two years, while thousands continue to leave the profession with increasing numbers choosing to work abroad.
Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, said: “Dangerous stress levels have become normalised inside an NHS which is unable to cope with demand. Chronic workforce shortages are putting nurses under unbearable pressure, unable to deliver the high-quality care they were trained to. To make matters worse, low pay means they can’t make ends meet when they go home. It is no way to treat our safety-critical profession.
‘’Nursing staff are the single largest workforce group in the NHS but they are running on empty. Government and NHS leaders need to stop normalising poor mental health amongst staff and take action to ease the pressure and boost recruitment and retention. A long term workforce plan built on the backs of broken staff isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
“Rather than blaming ‘sicknote culture’, the prime minister should be trying to make the lives of nursing staff easier, starting with significant investment in services and the nursing profession."
