Over 27,000 nurses and midwives quit the NHS last year, with many blame work pressure, the Covid pandemic and poverty patient care for them decision.
rise in employees leave their posts across the UK – first in four years – has raised concerns that frontline workers are being overburdened, especially with nationwide NHS shortage of nurses.
New figures show National Health Service also becomes more dependent on nurses and midwives trained overseas as an internal hire remains stubbornly low.
In the report on On Wednesday, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) reports that the numbers in both trades across the UK have risen to their highest level – 758 303.
However, while 48,436 nurses and midwives joined his registry, 27,133 stopped working last year – 25,219 nurses, 1,474 midwives and 304 who played both roles. What happened higher than 23 934 who did so in 2020 after the Covid hit, and 25,488 who left in 2019.
“WITH more more than 500 nurses and midwives leave every week, there is no place for government complacency [about NHS staffing]”said Sarah Gorton, head of health on union Unison.
Andrea Sutcliffe, chief executive of NMC, said that although record amount of nurses and midwives were good news”A closer look at our data reveals some troubling signs.” She brought a lot of alumni and fact What do you want who left shared disturbing stories about the pressures they have had to endure during the pandemic.”
NMC requested 6,458 of those who leave last year for three main the reasons why they did it. Too much pressure (18.3%), negative work culture (13%), Covid (11.8%) and frustration. with quality of care received by patients (8.1%) has become key factors, although retirement (42.9%) and change in personal circumstances (21.7%) were the two most common reasons. “Too much pressure” was defined as staff stress and poor mental health.
NHS in There are almost 40,000 nursing posts in England. more over 8000 posts for doctors are not full. Supplies of the number of home-grown nurses increased only marginally despite government recovery financial support worth up up to £8,000 per year year for trainee nurses.
Out of 48,436 employees who joined NMC Register, just under half – 23,408 (48%) – from abroad, of of which 66% were trained in India or Philippines. This is a huge growth. on 2719 who came in 2017-18. James Buchan, senior a visiting fellow at the Health Foundation think tank, said: “International recruitment is a very term fast-fix solution that can come from of long-term workforce planning and internal supply”.
Pat Cullen, Executive Director of King’s College of Nursing, expressed concern that the NHS is taking nurses from low-income families. countries. “Health and care workers in the UK pride themselves on diversity, but this [recruitment] must be done ethically,” she said.
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Brexit bad hit NHS staff, NMC figures show. In 2015–2016, until the June 2016 referendum on EU membership9 389 nurses and midwives traveled to work in UK from EU and European Economic Area. past year just 663 did it, the lowest number for many years. Less than 1000 made it each year since 2017-18
Sajid Javid, health and social care secretary welcomed record numbers on NMS register. “I am determined to continue growing our staff to help us deal with the Covid backlog and reduce waiting lists and we on track for delivery 50,000 more nurses by 2024, with over 30,000 more working in NHS since September 2019,” he said.
