Majority of NHS staff burnt out or exhausted, poll finds
New polling has suggested that around one in eight NHS staff intend to leave in the next year, with many airing fears about burnout and worker shortages.
YouGov has published its latest survey of health service workers, centering around workforce gaps and their impact on patient care and staff wellbeing.
The survey was taken in the latter half of June 2024, shortly before the change of government in the general election, and saw responses from 1,260 NHS workers.
Almost three quarters (69%) of surveyed healthcare workers said that staff shortages were “often” negatively impacting the quality of care provided.
A similarly large majority (70%) said they were taking on extra work to compensate for missing staff, with only 21% saying their workload is manageable when accounting for “extra” duties.
The survey then asked staff about the impact of these shortages on staff themselves, and about their wellbeing in general.
Around three quarters (73%) of NHS staff in the survey said they experienced burnout or exhaustion “at least some of the time”, with 27% feeling this way “always” or “most” of the time.
Almost half of the staff (47%) said they would not recommend a healthcare career to a family member and around a quarter (27%) said they were unlikely to be working in the NHS in five years’ time time.
Meanwhile, 13% said they planned to leave in the next year.
The survey found that just a quarter of staff (25%) reported feeling “happy” at work, compared to 57% reporting feeling “frustrated” and 53% “stressed”.
The results of YouGov’s polling echo that of other organisations’.
A report by public services union Unison, published in April, found that the majority of nursing and midwifery shifts were understaffed and that this was leading to delays in pain relief and other fundamental areas of care.
Then, in July, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) published the results of a poll of 11,000 nursing staff, which was also carried out shortly before the election.
The RCN found that only 32% of hospital and 36% of community nursing staff had the planned number of registered nurses on their most recent shift at the time, leaving staff feeling “demoralised”.
YouGov’s poll comes ahead of the publication of a major review into the health service by academic surgeon and peer Lord Ara Darzi.
Lord Darzi’s review, which will be published later this week, was commissioned by the Labour government shortly after Sir Keir Starmer became prime minister in July.
The former health minister was asked to undertake a “raw and honest” assessment of the health service, with the RCN – in its submission to the report – urging Lord Darzi to investigate the impact of understaffing, and to consider nurse-to-patient ratios, in the review.
