NHS workers take 1million days off sick in stress epidemic

A STRESS epidemic among nurses and other health workers is putting growing pressure on Scotland’s NHS as it battles a staffing crisis.

The number of days lost to stress has soared as hospitals struggle to cope.

Over the past three full years, the total has topped one million working days because of stress, anxiety, depression and other psychiatric illnesses.

Nursing leaders say the figures show the effect of the ‘personal and professional toll’ on workers trying to care for patients amid ‘chronic staff shortages’.

Labour’s health spokesman Monica Lennon said: ‘It’s obvious people working in the NHS are being pushed to the limit, often delivering high levels of care to the detriment of their own health and wellbeing.

‘The SNP has created a staffing crisis in our health service, with more than 3,000 nursing and midwifery posts lying unfilled – a crisis worsened by Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to cut the number of training posts while she was health secretary.’

Figures published by Scottish Labour after a Freedom of Information request show days lost to stress leapt 17.6 per cent between 2015/16 and 2017/18.

There were 355,212 days lost in 2015/16, rising to 381,456 in 2016/17 and 417,740 in 2017/18. Over the three-year period, the biggest rise was in Fife, at 39.3 per cent, followed by Borders at 33.1 per cent, Ayrshire and Arran on 29.4 per cent, and Forth Valley, at 28 per cent. More than 4,300 nurses quit the NHS last year, while spending on bank and agency staff to plug the gaps has soared.

Royal College of Nursing Scotland director Theresa Fyffe said: ‘Every day nurses and healthcare support workers go onto their shift wanting to deliver safe, high-quality care to patients, but staffing shortages mean they often struggle to provide the care they want to.

‘The personal and professional toll of constantly feeling like you are failing your patients is enormous and must not be underestimated. For too long, nursing staff have had to deal with increased demands on their time while also battling chronic staff shortages.’

The Scottish Government said this month it would try to tackle the recruitment crisis by handing all student nurses £10,000 bursaries from 2020.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman’s spokesman said: ‘We take the welfare of hard-working NHS staff very seriously. Every health board is required to have robust policies in place when it comes to the mental health and well-being of employees.

‘But we will take absolutely no lectures from Labour when it comes to staffing.

‘It is the SNP which has delivered record high NHS staff numbers, up by more than 12,000 on the number inherited from Labour, and we have delivered record health funding.’

‘Personal and professional toll’