DOCTORS RUSH FOR EXIT DOOR
WRUNG-OUT doctors are quitting in droves as NHS bosses fear a crippling mass exodus of staff.
More than 2,500 consultants, GPS and surgeons handed in their notice last year.
Figures show 236 left citing a work-life imbalance in the year to March 2021.
And as NHS sickness rates surge to catastrophic new heights, exhausted staff warn the health service was facing a tidal wave of departures.
Labour MP and A&E doctor Rosena Allin-khan said colleagues were at “breaking point”.
She said: “One thing is clear, no matter where they are, or what speciality they work in, they all feel exhausted and many of them are considering leaving the jobs they love.
“It goes against every fibre of their being, but for nurses who are stretched beyond measure, GPS who are understaffed or surgeons who have had to cancel operations, it is becoming too much.
“No one signs up for risking their life with incorrect protective equipment, watching teammates die or fight in intensive care, suffering with indescribable fatigue and being many, many team members down, every single shift.
“Lately, for colleagues up and down the country, going to work feels like entering a battlefield.”
Record numbers of staff left between July and September last year, NHS England data shows.
Over 27,000 medics – 2% of the total – quit, with 7,000 blaming work-life balance concerns, the largest number since records began in 2011.
Horrors
Kirsty Brewerton, 34, has spent the pandemic working on an often understaffed ward at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire.
She quit her fixed hours staff job to become a nurse on the NHS staff bank and says many colleagues have “nothing left to give”.
Kirsty said: “We were already experiencing a staffing crisis prior to the pandemic, so the impact we are feeling now is off the scale.
“We’ve had a mass exodus of intensive care and theatre staff due to the horrors they faced.
“There has been no effort from government to adequately support retention. We’ve staff leaving for admin roles that pay more for a lot less stress.
“These are really amazing care support workers, that are exactly who you would want looking after you at your time of need, but their role is valued so poorly they can’t afford to stay in the job.
“The impact of all of this is poor patient care. We are watching standards slip to levels we haven’t seen before and, despite our pleas, nothing is being done about it.”
Hospital staff Covid absences in England hit 39,142 on January 2. The NHS is already short of 93,000 staff as the number of untreated patients with non-covid issues continues to mount.
Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who chairs the Commons health and social care select committee said: “We already had a serious staffing crisis, with a burnt-out workforce.
“Far from tackling the backlog, the NHS will be able to deliver little more than day-to-day firefighting unless the Government wakes up to the scale of the staffing crisis facing the NHS.”