NHS doctors are taking a record number of sick days because of stress, anxiety and burnout.
An average of 500 medics were off sick every day last year with stress-related issues.
And the number of days docs are absent due to stress has doubled in the last seven years of Tory rule.
Last year 185,664 days were lost to stress out of just over a million sick days in all, 8% more than 2021.
That is equal to a daily average of almost 3,000 medics calling in ill.
In 2016 there were just under half a million sick days, with 90,397 caused by stress.
Critics say the figures are further evidence that doctors – who are striking for better pay and conditions – are being worked into the ground in a broken health service.
And they come as we can also reveal that 999 workers have taken 40% more days off sick through stress in five years. Alan Taman, of campaign group Doctors for the NHS, said: “Doctors are no wimps.
“It takes a lot to drive them to stop. But our NHS has been ignored, starved, treated with utter contempt and left to be hacked apart by private companies by this government. Too many staff have been asked to carry too much for too long. So guess what? Those that are left are starting to break too.
“This was always about more than pay. People really should ask themselves: when it’s my kids, my parents or me lying there – don’t I want the very best? And why the hell aren’t we getting it?”
Dr Latifa Patel, of the British Medical Association, added: “These figures add to a growing amount of deeply concerning evidence that doctors are at breaking point, and the impact that the unprecedented crisis within the NHS is having on the health of our profession.
“The NHS is in the worst state it has ever been in, yet ministers continue to fail to resource it properly, threatening patient safety and putting doctors’ health at risk.”
Fed-up UK medics are quitting, going part-time or emigrating – many lured to Australia and New Zealand by better pay and conditions. Some juniors say they can earn more working in cafes as pay has eroded so badly in 12 years of Tory rule.
In March former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt published a book about the NHS in which he admitted the “relatively low number of doctors makes daily work extremely pressured.” The book, called Zero: Eliminating Unnecessary Deaths In A Post-Pandemic NHS, adds: “Frontline staff are increasingly experiencing burnout… in the latest NHS staff survey, around 40% of frontline staff say they have been unable to function properly because of stress.
“As a result, many then choose to reduce their hours and work part-time. In doing so – for perfectly understandable reasons – they exacerbate the pressure on their colleagues even more.”
Now Chancellor, Mr Hunt is at the head of a government refusing to discuss pay terms with doctors.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay has said he will not sit down for talks until the BMA ditches its 35% “pay restoration” demand.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: “Labour will train an extra 7,500 doctors and 10,000 more nurses a year, paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status, so the NHS has the staff it needs to treat patients on time.”
A spokesman for the NHS said it offered “regular health and wellbeing conversations within local teams, strengthened local occupational health services as well as specific services to support staff, who
can self-refer and access specialist help confidentially”.
Burnout months after qualifying
A doctor suffered panic attacks months after qualifying as a GP.
Claire Ashley, 39, said: “I had inadvertently slipped into severe anxiety, depression, and burnout within six months of achieving a goal that I had worked incredibly hard for the entirety of my adult life.”
The mum of two from Bristol struggled on until deciding to work as a locum.
But Dr Ashley, an ambassador for mental wellbeing charity Doctors in Distress, said many others are reluctant to sign off sick.
She added: “We know that if we call in sick that we will adversely affect our patients and colleagues. Given the horrific state of the NHS, none of us want to feel responsible for worsening an already difficult situation.
“The fact that sick rates for stress are going up genuinely does reflect significant suffering because that’s what it takes for doctors to go off sick.”
Strikes torment of cancer patient
Exclusive by Laura Connor
A cancer patient has missed a week of chemo and now faces further delays due to the doctors’ strikes.
Rachael Prydderch has stage four cancer in her liver, lungs, and bones.
She has also had an appointment for scan results cancelled and will have to wait another week to find out if her cancer has spread.
The mum of two, 53, from Leicester, said: “My oncologist and my consultant are amazing but being so short-staffed means they can’t do everything they need to, and this is what happens. I kept ringing up and the secretary told me that because of the strikes that’s just how it is. People are missing out on life-saving medication.”
Rachael had been in remission from breast cancer since 2013 but was told it had returned over lockdown in 2020.
Leicester Hospitals said: “Treatment is only postponed when clinically safe.”
Fury at Barclay
Nurses' union chief Pat Cullen has criticised the Health Secretary for announcing legal action against strike plans, and called it a “blatant threat”.
The Royal College of Nursing walkout is from April 30 to May 2, but Steve Barclay says the mandate only runs to midnight on May 1 so the strike is illegal.
