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More than half of NHS staff feel burnt out at the end of their working day, and four out of five feel there aren’t enough staff in their organisation to do their job properly, according to the latest NHS Staff Survey.
The survey was conducted between September and November last year and drew on responses from more than 648,000 staff from 217 NHS trusts.
The results reveal that an increasing number of healthcare professionals feel overworked, with just 38% feeling able to meet all the conflicting demands on their time at work, down from 43% in 2020.
Staff are also feeling increasingly undervalued, with just 42.1% saying they were satisfied with the extent to which their organisation values their work, the lowest for five years.
The majority of NHS staff also feel they are being underpaid, with just under a third (32.7%) saying they are satisfied with their salary, a decline of four percentage points since 2020.
Nearly half of staff have felt unwell as a result of work-related stress
Respondents also highlighted concerns relating to their safety and health. In total, 30.8% of staff said they have experienced musculoskeletal problems as a result of work activities in the last 12 months, wile nearly half (46.8%) have felt unwell as a result of work-related stress in the last 12 months.
More than half (54.5%) of NHS staff said they have gone into work in the last three months despite not feeling well enough to perform their duties, a figure that was particularly high (63.9%) among Ambulance staff.
These negative experiences have led to a decline in overall job satisfaction, which has seen the number of staff willing to recommend their organisation as a place to work drop from 66.8% in 2020 to 59.4% in 2021.
Years of shortages and a lack of workforce strategy have led to the NHS’ decline
Nuffield Trust Fellow Jessica Morris said the results of the survey may be “unsurprising” but it is “concerning nonetheless to see the first-hand impact of the significant pressures on the NHS on the morale of our health workers.”
While the pandemic has added to the “intolerable pressure on staff”, Ms Morris notes that even before the pandemic began, “years and years of shortages and a lack of workforce strategy” have “overstretched” the NHS.
Royal College of Nursing Director for England, Patricia Marquis, similarly warns that the survey serves as a “stark reminder of the impact of tens of thousands of nursing vacancies”, and urges MPs to vote for a new law which would require ministers to publish regular workforce assessments.
“The government wants MPs to vote against these plans; we urge them to defy ministers and seize this vital opportunity,” she said.