‘Unsustainable pressure’ sees almost two thirds of nurses consider leaving

Almost two thirds of nurses in Scotland are considering or actively planning to leave their current job amid “unsustainable pressure”, the nursing union RCN Scotland has warned.

It is an almost 80 per cent increase on the percentage of nurses in this position at the start of the pandemic.

A survey of more than 1,000 RCN members in October showed 41 per cent of respondents were considering leaving their job, while 20 percent were actively planning for this.

Reasons for leaving included feeling undervalued, feeling under pressure, staffing shortages and pay.

Some 67 per cent of respondents said they were too busy to give patients the care they would like, and 72 per cent said they were under too much pressure at work.

RCN Scotland interim director Colin Poolman said the current situation was “unsustainable”, with 5,721 nursing and midwifery vacancies reported last year.

“These findings paint a worrying picture of the pressure that Scotland’s nursing staff were under before the most recent wave of the pandemic,” he said. “Staff are working unpaid overtime, are under too much pressure and unable to provide the level of care they would like.

“The Scottish Government must commit significant additional funding to provide and support a sustainable workforce as well as the implementation of safe staffing legislation,” he said.

The Scottish Conservatives labelled the survey results “deeply concerning”.

Shadow health secretary Sandesh Gulhane said nurses were “beyond breaking point”, and called on the government to take urgent action.

Jackie Baillie, Labour health spokesperson, said: “We cannot re-build our NHS after the pandemic if our nurses are ready to leave the profession in droves.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We are immensely grateful for the incredible efforts of all of our NHS and Social Care staff over the course of the pandemic. We are demonstrating that gratitude through our actions.

“Our nurses and NHS staff are already the best paid in the UK. The 2021/22 pay uplift saw staff receive an average 4 per cent pay rise.”