Nurses took an average of one week off sick for stress last year

Nurses took an average of a week off sick for stress last year, NHS data show.

The figures released by NHS England show almost seven million days lost to illness last year from nurses and health visitors.

Of those, almost a quarter were for stress-related illness, analysis reveals.

The 1.67 million days lost to leave for stress, anxiety and depression is the equivalent of a week off for each of the 350,000 nurses and health visitors working for the NHS, analysis by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) shows.

In total, the illnesses accounted for 24.3 per cent of days lost to sickness in 2023.

This is more than double the prevalence of any other kind of illness, with cold or flu being the next largest at 12 per cent.

The RCN analysis shows the proportion of sick days attributed to stress, anxiety, depression and other psychological illnesses increased from 21 per cent in 2022 to 24.3 per cent in 2023.

Sunak’s pledge to end ‘sick note culture’

The data comes after Rishi Sunak used a major speech to vow to end Britain’s “sick note culture”, unveiling a plan to strip GPs of their power to sign people off work.

The Prime Minister raised concerns that benefits have become a “lifestyle choice” for some, with concern in Government that more than half of those on long-term sickness leave report depression, bad nerves or anxiety.

The RCN said chronic staffing shortages were heaping pressures on nurses and health visitors.

They said 34,000 vacancies for nursing staff meant shifts were consistently understaffed.

The union accused the Government of “normalising poor mental health amongst staff” calling for action to tackle “dangerous levels of stress and anxiety” including measures to boost staff recruitment.

Professor Pat Cullen, RCN general secretary and chief executive, said: “Dangerous stress levels have become normalised inside an NHS which is unable to cope with demand. Chronic workforce shortages are putting nurses under unbearable pressure, unable to deliver the high-quality care they were trained to. To make matters worse, low pay means they can’t make ends meet when they go home. It is no way to treat our safety-critical profession.

“Nursing staff are the single largest workforce group in the NHS but they are running on empty. Government and NHS leaders need to stop normalising poor mental health amongst staff and take action to ease the pressure and boost recruitment and retention. A long term workforce plan built on the backs of broken staff isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

“Rather than blaming ‘sick note culture’, the Prime Minister should be trying to make the lives of nursing staff easier, starting with significant investment in services and the nursing profession.”