More than 40,000 nurses left the NHS in the year to June 2022, analysis by the Nuffield Trust has revealed.
According to the report, 40,365 NHS nurses in England left active service – equivalent to one in nine. Across the decade for which data are available, this is a peak in absolute terms (6,100 more leavers than the previous peak five years prior) and relative to the size of the workforce, with a leaver rate of 11.5%.
To read more abut this subject, visit:
- Nursing leaders welcome Labour’s NHS workforce expansion plan
- Midwives to ballot on industrial action in England and Wales
- RCN announces new industrial action strike ballot dates
‘Liz Truss must ask herself why record numbers are quitting a career they’ve loved. And, more importantly, tell us what her government will do about it,’ said RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, Pat Cullen.
There are also differences by type of NHS provider. The highest average nurse leaver rates – at one in six nurses in the year to June 2022 – appear to be in community provider trusts (16.8%), which provide services such as district nursing and community physiotherapy, followed by care trusts (one in seven, 14.7%), which provide closer health and social care services particularly for the elderly. The lowest average reported rates were in non-specialist acute trusts, at one in eight nurses – from 11.8% for small acute to 12.4% for multi-service acute.
‘We need the prime minister to show she’s grasped the urgency here,’ added Ms Cullen.
‘Nursing staff know that the care they give to patients is now too often unsafe. Next week, nurses left working in the NHS will be voting on strike action and telling the prime minister that she must grip this situation - pay nursing fairly and give health and care services the investment the public expects.’