Alarm as 14,000 stressed medics quit NHS
THE number of stressed workers quitting the NHS has more than doubled in just four years.
New figures show nearly 14,000 staff left last year because they wanted a better work-life balance. In 2011/12 the figure was 6,727.
The number who left for health reasons also soared – from 2,138 four years ago to 3,068 last year. Unions say the NHS is spending millions on agency staff to plug gaps and claim patients will be at risk from “dangerous” staff levels.
The GMB’s Rehana Azam said: “The pressure of not being able to deliver care because resources are too stretched is becoming too much for NHS staff. They have done their best, but have now reached breaking point. This government has exhausted the goodwill of NHS staff and it is patients who will suffer.”
Figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre shows nearly 67,000 clinical staff – including 15,656 doctors and 31,546 nurses – left the NHS last year, 9,000 more than in 2010-11. The biggest rise in leavers was in ambulance staff, with the number soaring by 58 per cent from 872 in 2010-11 to 1,378 last year.
Ms Azam said: “Staffing has reached dangerous levels. It has got to the point where sick people are not going to get treated.”
Josie Irwin, the head of employ- ment relations at the Royal College of Nursing, said the crisis could grow if aspiring nurses are put off by planned changes to student funding.
Dr Mark Porter, of the British Medical Association, called for greater investment to prevent “a disaster financially and in terms of patient health”.