Nurses’ exodus
200,000 quit the NHS in 8 years as staff crisis deepens
MORE than 200,000 nurses have quit the NHS in less than a decade, damning figures show.
Some 163,094 have left the health service for reasons other than retirement since 2010, according to official data.
Poor work-life balance and rising demand are being blamed for the increasing numbers of doctors, nurses and support staff turning their backs on the NHS.
Despite the high numbers leaving, recruitment has seen staffing levels stay almost constant since 2010.
However, with growing demand heaping extra pressure on the service, the number of staff needed to cope is rising faster than posts can be filled.
One in 11 NHS jobs is currently vacant – including a deficit of nearly 42,000 nurses, equivalent to 12 per cent of all nursing staff. Hospitals are now having to rely on agencies to make up the numbers.
In 2010, by contrast, there were 8,153 nursing vacancies, or 2.5 per cent of all nursing staff.
Official data analysed by Labour shows 200,586 nurses quit the NHS between June 2010 and June 2018.
The number quitting each year has risen from 21,041 to 26,776 over the same period.
In total, 163,094 staff quit for reasons other than retirement, with poor work-life balance increasing more than any other reason, the figures show.
The problem is echoed throughout the NHS, with voluntary resignations having increased from 74,287 to 114,870 a year since 2010.
Doctors have the biggest proportion of leavers at 14.6 cent in 2017/18, followed by nurses and health visitors at 10.7 per cent and midwives at 10.6 per cent.
In a speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research today, shadow health spokesman Jonathan Ashworth will say Labour will invest in staff pay and training and reintroduce nurse bursaries. He will also argue the Government is failing in its duties to staff enshrined in the NHS Constitution, such as creating a flexible working environment.
He will say: ‘After years of pay restraint, cuts to training budgets and growing pressures it is no wonder the NHS is facing chronic shortages of 100,000 staff.’
Last week leading health think-tanks warned the NHS needed thousands more nurses to apply from abroad.
A major report by The King’s Fund, Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation warned patients are facing longer delays for treatment as the NHS struggles to both recruit and retain sufficient staff.
A long-awaited NHS workper force strategy is not expected until later this year.
Dame Donna Kinnair, of the Royal College of Nursing, said: ‘Health and care services are losing thousands of experienced, dedicated nursing staff who feel as if no one is sufficiently listening to their concerns and patient care is routinely compromised by chronic staff shortages.
‘ The RCN is calling for accountability for staffing of safe and effective care to be enshrined in law in England.’
The Department of Health said it was improving retention by ‘promoting flexibility, well-being and career development’. It added that the workforce strategy would ensure ‘the NHS has the staff it needs for the future’. k.pickles@dailymail.co.uk
‘Years of pay restraint’