LONDON: The number of nurses taking time off due to stress in the UK has soared as health authorities struggled to cope with rising demand for care.
Both the number of nurses on stress-related leave and the amount of time taken off are up significantly in the past three years in London, Scotland and Wales, responses to freedom of information requests submitted to National Health Service (NHS) organizations by the Observer newspaper show.
The figures have prompted claims by health unions that the NHS’s 400,000 nurses are being stretched to breaking point as a result of having to work more demanding and longer shifts.
In London, almost 1,500 nurses at 31 NHS trusts took time off because of stress during 2014, up 27 per cent on the 1,179 who did so in 2012. That meant that one in every 29 nurses were off ill with stress. The 1,497 nurses took an average of 38 days off for stress.
The number of nurses’ working days lost to stress at the 28 acute trusts and three mental health trusts rose from 38,654 in 2012 to 57,156 last year – a rise of 48 per cent, the report said.
The seven health boards in Wales have seen the number of nurses off with stress rise 17 per cent from 2,188 in 2012 to 2,563 last year. Those who become so stressed they could no longer work were off sick for an average of 51 days. Scotland also saw stress-related sick days among nurses rise, by 34 per cent from 116,735 in 2012 to 156,880 last year.
The Royal College of Nursing, which represents about 300,000 NHS nurses, said they were “being driven to breaking point”.
Kim Sunley, its senior employment relations adviser, said: “The strain put on the health service in recent years, with jobs having been cut and resources frozen as patient numbers have gone up, has made the situation even worse.
NHS Employers, which represents hospitals and other providers of care, estimates that over 30 per cent of all NHS sick leave is caused by stress, which is believed to cost the service up to 400 million pounds a year in lost productivity and the cost of replacing stressed staff.
In 2012 and 2013 combined, 38 per cent of NHS personnel told a staff survey that they had suffered stress in the previous year.
An NHS Employers spokesman said there had been “a lot of work and progress in this area”. The Department of Health maintained that stress levels were stable across England.
“We know nurses are working extremely hard, but these figures create a misleading picture,” a spokesman said. -PTI
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