Last Updated on September 27, 2022
New sector workforce research has revealed 43% of workers are considering a change due to the pressures of their current job. 16% are planning to leave the industry completely.
A study of over 1,000 health and social care workers, conducted by Florence, a technology platform providing health and social care workers access to available shifts, found that almost a third of healthcare workers (28%) admit to feeling overwhelmed at least once a week, with 17% feeling burnt-out every day. 97% of those surveyed believe the cost-of-living crisis has caused further stress or burnout among healthcare professionals.
It comes after more than half of healthcare workers (56%) admit to working more than 2-3 times a week over their contracted hours, with 7% working overtime everyday. Not having enough staff is causing the most pressure in their role (50%), followed by low pay (39%) and high workload (35%).
The study reveals nine in 10 (89%) NHS and social care workers state chronic staff shortages are affecting the quality of care. In addition, three quarters (76%) stated quality of care is already being ‘severely’ impacted as high vacancy rates sweep across the industry.
A&E wait times are at the highest levels they have been in over a decade and over 6.5 million people are on the waiting list for hospital treatment (NHS Key Statistics: England, June 2022). However, this new sector workforce research suggests that things are set to get worse with nearly nine in 10 (85%) health and social care workers expecting wait times to increase over the rest of 2022. Moreover, health workers mostly expect wait times to double this year (25%), while a further one in five (19%) expect times to more than double the current records.
A reduction in wait time is important to mitigate quality of care being further impacted. This new sector workforce research identifies that in order to reduce wait times, a third (30%) believe the Government needs to put an increased focus on recruitment on hiring, over a quarter (27%) are calling for the whole system to be overhauled, and over one in five (22%) feel the Government needs to do encourage more people into the sector early on (e.g. at school or college).
Fiona Millington, Chief Nurse at Florence, said, 'The biggest challenge for the industry at the moment is, without a doubt, staffing. There are more nurses leaving the industry than joining, at a time when the demand for nurses is increasing. The number of vacancies still sits above 105,000 and remains much higher than the overall unemployment rate. The lack of support on the ground is leading to mass burnout across the workforce, leading many to question their futures in the profession. The NHS is plugging vacancies with resources from other countries and areas but it has become just a constant cycle of crisis management, without developing long term solutions to the problem.'
Dr. Charles Armitage, Former NHS doctor and CEO and Founder of Florence, added, 'If you've got fewer people there on-shift to look after people, the quality of care decreases because the people that are there are overstretched, they're trying to do too many things and are suffering from severe burnout. As a result, mistakes are made as they're not able to just spend as much time with people and provide that really important patient-centred care.'
In other news, experts from the University of Stirling have created a new tool to support families, businesses, and professionals to make homes, premises, and public places more accessible to an ageing population and those living with dementia.