Staff leaving NHS mental services on rapid pace: Report
More and more nurses, therapists and psychiatrists are abandoning their posts in the British National Health Service as people face lengthy waits for treatment across the country.
A report in The Observer published on Saturday showed that around 2,000 staff leave NHS mental health services in England alone each month with the government effectively unable to fill the increasing number of vacancies created in the organization.
The figures, cited from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), comes amid numerous reports suggesting that the NHS is grappling with acute understaffing which has left the body struggle with a surge in patients seeking help for anxiety, depression and other disorders.
Health minister Jackie Doyle-Price said in the British parliament last week that a total of 23,686 mental health staff left the NHS between June 2017 and the end of May this year. He said one in 10 mental health posts were unfilled at the end of June, despite previous government pledges to increase the mental health workforce in the NHS by 19,000 by 2021. That comes as reports suggest the health authorities have only added 915 people to the workforce by March this year.
Labour MP Paula Sherriff said government’s failure to recruit staff at the NHS was a sign it had no determination to end the injustice existing in the health sector.
“These shocking figures show the government is woefully failing to meet the prime minister’s promise to tackle the ‘burning injustice’ of inadequate treatment for mental illness” said Sherriff who also serves as shadow mental health minister.
Understaffing, which many blame on a government clampdown on pay in the health sector, has made it increasingly difficult for the NHS to meet the rapidly rising demand for care in Britain. That comes as many non-British doctors and nurses are preparing to leave the NHS over increasing uncertainty about Brexit and how Britain will leave the European Union in March next year.
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