The equivalent of half a million working days in the NHS were lost due to anxiety and mental health issues in January, figures revealed on Thursday.
The number of lost days accounted for nearly a quarter (23.3 per cent) of overall absences, the statistics released by NHS Digital showed.
This was an increase from the 20.8 per cent reported in January 2022, when the NHS was dealing with a surge in Covid-19 cases.
More than 360,000 working days were lost due to flu last January while 151,000 were lost due to chest and respiratory problems.
The figures lay bare the pressure on NHS staff amid a surge in flu, Strep A and record demand for emergency care over the New Year period. Unions say chronic staffing shortages are exacerbating the psychological toll on staff.
At the peak of the crisis in the week to January 1, more than 1,800 ambulances in the capital faced a delay of over 60 minutes to hand over a patient to A&E as hospital staff struggled to free up beds.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has highlighted staff shortages and burnout as among the key reasons for industrial action staged by nurses in the past six months. Last week, the RCN launched a fresh ballot for another six months of strikes after its members rejected a pay offer from the Government.
The deal, which was accepted by other health unions, consisted of a one-off lump sum and 5 per cent pay rise for the next financial year.
Last month, the RCN claimed that a third of mental health and wellbeing hubs set up to support health and social care workers during the pandemic had closed since Government funding ended on March 31.
Mental health charity the Laura Hyde Foundation (LHF) has claimed that the number of nurses who tried to take their own life in the UK in 2022 was the equivalent of one every day.
The overall sickness absence rate for England was 6.7 per cent, which was higher than December 2021 (6.2 per cent) and higher than January 2021 (5.7 per cent).
Ambulance Trusts had the highest sickness absence rate at 9.9 per cent in January 2022, which was higher than their rate in December 2021 (9.3 per cent).
Dr Billy Palmer, a senior fellow at the Nuffield Trust, told the Standard: “While sickness levels have fallen back from unprecedented peaks seen during the pandemic, the NHS nonetheless has a much sicker workforce than before the pandemic.
“It is clear that the latest challenging winter took a huge toll on the wellbeing of staff. In January 2023, over half a million working days were lost to mental health illnesses alone. Anxiety, stress, depression, and other psychiatric illnesses accounted for a quarter of sick days for nurses, and even more for midwives (29 per cent).
“The link between these growing sick days and valuable clinicians leaving the workforce is evident, with physical or mental health and burnout or exhaustion amongst the top three cited main reasons for nurses quitting. A well-functioning NHS cannot afford to ignore these loud and clear warnings from its overstretched workforce.”
Dr Latifa Patel, chair of the representative body and workforce lead at the BMA, told the Standard that doctors’ health and wellbeing was “at breaking point”.
“The unprecedented crisis we’re currently facing within the NHS is having a significant impact on the health of doctors, with staff becoming increasingly unable to work because of they are burnt out.
“The lack of support for doctors continues to lead to staffing shortages, while the complete lack of investment in the workforce and their working environments is causing further stress, anxiety, and depression which means doctors continue to suffer.”
She added that the NHS is in the “worst state it has ever been in, yet there seems to be no plan in place to ensure that our health service is properly resourced, which is threatening patient safety and putting doctors’ health at serious risk”.
