Esther Sekyere, neonatal nurse
Esther Sekyere, 27, believed she had found her perfect job when she became a neonatal nurse, helping families through precarious times and saving lives.
But she left the NHS last July feeling she had been pushed to the brink. It was a hard decision, but she felt she was “going to crack”.
“I absolutely loved nursing,” said Sekyere, who worked for a NHS trust in south London. “I loved the idea of using medicine and technology to improve healthcare.”
She was one of nearly 170,000 staff who left active service in the NHS last year. Like many, she felt burnt out by the constant stress.
Sekyere completed a nursing degree at Middlesex University in 2019 and began working on a neonatal unit in June 2020. It was in the middle of the pandemic, with nurses falling ill, routine work hampered by the need for personal protective equipment and staff deployed to Covid-19 wards.
“We were working in a very scary scenario and feared for our lives,” she said, adding that staff shortages led to anxiety about possible failures in care.
“The main pressure was looking after more patients than we felt we could handle. You start to think I am going to crack at some point because I am being stretched between far too many patients.”
She said training programmes were delayed and insufficient time was given to supporting less experienced nurses on the wards. She cut her shifts to focus on her health, but it was not financially sustainable. She is now an intern at a healthcare consultancy firm.
Will McGuinness, emergency consultant
Will McGuinness, 42, an emergency consultant, left the accident and emergency unit where he worked in London about a month ago. He moved with his family to a new job as a senior medical officer in Hamilton in New Zealand, where his basic salary has increased by about 50%.
McGuinness said poor working conditions and a cut in pay in real terms over several years contributed to his decision.
“I had to apologise to patients every day.” he said. “Imagine you find [yourself at] a point in your life in absolute need and you dial 999 and nobody comes.
“And when they eventually do, you get rushed to the hospital and have to sit and wait. It’s barely humane.
“We were barely functioning as a hospital on some occasions. I had to resuscitate people in corridors, waiting rooms and in an ambulance at one point. And London is better off than most of the country,” he said.
“My colleagues are an exceptional bunch. They worked incredibly hard and kept their chins up. They pushed themselves every single shift, but it was taking its toll. Maybe a quarter of my colleagues were thinking about leaving.”
McGuinness, who also worked as an emergency doctor for an air ambulance charity in the UK, said it was a difficult decision to leave.
“I am incredibly proud to have worked for the NHS, but it got to the point where the toll it was taking on me, and the wider impact on my family, could not be justified.”
