Unwell, but nurses often feel forced to carry on working in understaffed health service

WORKING in an understaffed NHS is leaving nurses sick and “broken”, according to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).

- 

A poll for the union and professional body found workforce shortages are causing nightmares and panic attacks, while nurses feel forced to keep working when they are ill.

Official NHS figures for June - the most recent available - show the overall sickness absence rate for NHS staff in England was 4.9%, around one in 20 members of staff.

Among nurses and health visitors, the figure was 5.3%, while it was 5.7% among midwives and 5.4% among ambulance workers.

Overall, 29% of full-time equivalent days that were lost to sickness among NHS staff in June were due to anxiety and/or stress, including 28% among nurses.

The RCN said it was receiving dozens of calls every week to its advice line from staff suffering burnout and needing help for short-staffed wards.

A survey of more than 20,000 UK nursing staff for the RCN found two thirds (66%) admitted to working while ill multiple times a year, up from fewer than half (49%) in 2017.

Stress was the biggest cause of illness given by staff (65.1%), up from 50% in 2017.

The RCN said its analysis showed that the numbers reporting working while sick and citing stress as the leading cause were both at an eight-year high.