'Dangerous stress levels have become normalised'

The latest sickness absence data from NHS England showed that across 2023 almost 7 million days were attributed to illness from nurses and health visitors. RCN analysis of the data found that nearly a quarter (24.3%) of these were due to stress-related illnesses. This is an increase from 21% in 2022.

Further analysis found stress-related sickness days are so high among nursing staff that it's equivalent to every single one of the health service’s 350,000 nurses and health visitors taking an entire week off work last year because of stress, anxiety or depression. 

The RCN says a chronic workforce crisis is driving the pressure on staff, with 34,000 unfilled nursing posts across the NHS in England, leading to consistently understaffed shifts.

We’re calling upon NHS leaders and the government to stop normalising poor mental health among staff and bring forward an action plan to tackle dangerous levels of stress and anxiety, including measures to boost recruitment and ease the pressure on staff. 

The health and safety regulator, the Health and Safety Executive, must also ensure organisations are meeting their legal duties to assess and mitigate the risks from work-related stress.

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. A long term workforce plan built on the backs of broken staff isn’t worth the paper it’s written on."