The proportion of NHS staff in England who are thinking of leaving reached a five-year high in the health service’s 2022 survey.
Amid high levels of burnout, stress and shortages of staff, more than 30% said they often thought about leaving, and 17% said they wanted to leave as soon as they could find another job.
More than one-third of staff said they felt burnt out due to their work, and 45% reported having felt unwell as a result of work-related stress in the last 12 months, compared with 40% in 2019. The results for ambulance staff were especially concerning, with 49% reporting burnout.
The proportion of staff working despite being ill reached a three-year high and was back to pre-pandemic levels, with more than half (57%) saying that in the last three months they had come to work despite not feeling well enough to perform their duties.
The survey results came as new figures show the NHS continuing to struggle to meet increased demand for care. The number of people waiting for NHS treatment in England rose again in January, to 7.2 million, another record, while the health service failed to meet any of its cancer targets in January and barely half of patients at A&E in February were seen within four hours.
With 124,000 unfilled vacancies across the NHS, three-quarters of participants in the survey did not feel there were enough staff to be able to do their job properly – a five-year record – while just 43% felt they could meet all the conflicting demands on their time. A third of staff said they had seen errors, near misses or incidents in the last month that could have hurt staff and/or patients.
The prevalence of bullying, harassment and abuse was similar to last year. More than a quarter of NHS staff said they had been harassed, bullied or abused at least once by patients, relatives or other members of the public over the previous year, 11% had experienced it from managers and 19% from other colleagues.
Levels of physical violence increased slightly from 2021, with 15% of staff saying they had experienced at least one incident of violence from patients, relatives or the public, 0.8% from managers and 1.8% from other colleagues.
Just under half of staff who experienced harassment, bullying or abuse said they or a colleague had reported it.
Unsurprisingly given the ongoing pay dispute, nearly three-quarters (74%) of staff were dissatisfied with their pay – leaving 26% satisfied, compared with 38% pre-pandemic.
The survey, which received 636,348 responses out of a total NHS staff of 1.3 million, also found that only 57% would recommend their organisation as a place to work, the lowest for three years and only 42% were satisfied with the extent to which their work is valued.
It found that 8% of respondents had experienced discrimination from patients, service users, relatives or other members of the public, and 9% from managers or colleagues.
Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of NHS Employers, part of the NHS Confederation, said: “It is no surprise given that we have now witnessed several months of industrial action by NHS staff that those same staff, who have worked through extraordinary challenges over the past few years, have expressed their feelings of deep frustration in these responses. Until staff know help is coming, their overall satisfaction with the NHS will not improve.”
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Helga Pile, the deputy head of health at Unison, said: “The government’s failure to protect the NHS is letting down patients and putting them at risk. The outlook is bleak unless ministers change direction dramatically. That means a comprehensive workforce plan, plus long-term investment in NHS pay, working conditions, training and apprenticeship places.
Sally Warren, the director of policy at the King’s Fund thinktank, said staff were being stretched to breaking point. “At a time when many people working across NHS are taking the difficult decision to strike over pay, safety and conditions, it is sadly not surprising that this survey paints a picture of staff feeling undervalued, under huge pressure and questioning their roles in the NHS,” she said. “It will not be possible to tackle the growing backlog of care, if NHS staff continue to be work in overstretched teams and report that work makes them feel unwell.”
Em Wilkinson-Brice, the national director for people at NHS England, said: “Our staff have shown time and time again how vital they are to the country, and I would like to thank each and every one of them for the work they do for patients every day. In the last 12 months alone, staff have been under unimaginable pressure – they have managed four record-breaking months for attendances in A&E, treated more cancer patients than ever before and faced the twindemic of Covid and flu.
“The survey results sadly show a decrease in satisfaction, and while it does show improvement in people feeling supported by their line manager and that staff have more opportunities to develop in their careers than last year, we know more needs to be done. So the NHS is supporting organisations and systems to focus on those things staff tell us matter to them, such as flexible working, line management, leadership development and career pathways within a compassionate and inclusive culture.”
Additional reporting by Pamela Duncan.