By Eniola Amadu
Research has identified stress as a leading cause of illness with nurses across the UK sick while working in understaffed hospitals.
According to a survey by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) involving more than 20,000 nursing staff, it was revealed that 66% had been engaged while sick. An increment from 49% in 2017.
Almost 65% of respondents mentioned stress as the biggest cause of illness. An increase from 50% in 2017.
Seven out of 10 revealed they had been engaged in excess of their proposed hours of duty at least once in a week, with almost half working without payment.
Over 25,000 nursing posts remain vacant within the NHS in England.
The RCN chief executive and general secretary, Prof Nicola Ranger stated that nurses get ill because of “working in understaffed and under-resourced services”.
She said: “Nursing staff strive to do their best for every patient on every shift, but they are left with the impossible task of caring for dozens and sometimes over a hundred at a time … the reality is they’re not breaking; many are already broken”.
In her assessment, she added that: “These findings are yet more cold, hard evidence that there are simply too few nursing staff to meet growing demand. New and urgent investment is desperately needed to grow the nursing workforce, ensuring staff are able to work in a safe environment and that patients get the best care.”
A staff member in an independent care home stated that they dread “going to work knowing we’d be short-staffed” and would “inevitably have to work over my hours, unpaid, just to get everything done”.
Another, who is a NHS staff nurse in England said to the RCN that they had developed a chronic illness related to stress and can not take time off “due to the department being overwhelmed and overstretched and […] Not wanting to add to that”.
The RCN revealed it gets an average of six calls per day from members complaining about staffing levels in their workplace with many mentioning burnout, panic attacks and nightmares as a result of their working conditions.
