Report: UK health sector saw record number of staff leaving work in 2022

A new report says a record number of nearly 170,000 workers left their jobs in the National Health Service (NHS) in England last year as the country's health system struggles with some of the worst pressures in its history.

The British newspaper The Observer, carried the report on Saturday, citing "stress and workload" as the main reasons causing health workers leaving their jobs.

According to the report, health professionals quitting their jobs included all types of employees such as doctors, nurses, ambulance staff, managers, support workers, and technical staff.

The figure featured more than 25 percent increase compared to 2019, and included 41,000 nurses, marking the highest number of people leaving hospitals and community health services in at least a decade.

"The number of staff who quit the NHS citing work-life balance stood at 27,546 in 2022, more than those who left because they had reached retirement age (24,143)," the report highlighted.

Billy Palmer, a senior fellow at the Nuffield Trust, an independent health thinktank, said it was “fairly staggering” that the number leaving the NHS citing work-life balance as a reason exceeded those who had reached retirement age under their pension scheme." His remarks came as a new research showed that the number of NHS workers citing work-life balance and health as reasons for leaving has roughly quadrupled in the last decade.

Meanwhile, a survey of the members of the Royal College of General Practitioners in 2022 found 39 percent of the GP workforce across the UK was seriously considering leaving the profession in the next five years. 

The NHS staff shortages have been aggravated by waves of strikes by nurses, paramedics and ambulance drivers demanding higher pay and better working conditions.

UK doctors strike, patients suffer, govt. looks other way

Thousands of junior doctors in the United Kingdom launched their third round of strikes this week, after labor forces in other industries walked out of their jobs, signaling the government’s inability to put an end to the long-running dispute over payments amid skyrocketing inflation.

The report also quoted experts as saying that "2022 may be a peak year for NHS departures because of those who may have deferred retirement because of the pandemic, but there has also been a surge in employees citing work-life balance as the reasons for quitting."

Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, said, "Staff did brilliant work during the pandemic, but there has been no respite. The data on people leaving is worrying and we need to see it reversed."

"We need to focus on staff well-being and continued professional development, showing the employers really do care about their frontline teams," he added.

No earlier than on Monday, a similarly damning report was released by the King's Fund charity, saying the NHS was a cause for "serious concern" as it lagged well behind other comparable countries in terms of key health metrics.

Report: UK health system cause for serious concern, lags behind other comparable countries

A new report says Britain

Released to mark the 75th anniversary of the NHS, the 118-page report compared Britain's flagship healthcare provider to the health systems in 19 similar countries.

It said the UK's health service -- despite being the first universal health system to be available to all following its establishment in 1948 -- is "not by any means where it should be."

Siva Anandaciva, the author of the report, lamented that "the UK performs worse than many of its peers on several comprehensive measures, including life expectancy and deaths that could have been avoided through timely and effective healthcare."

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