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Chronic Stress and Illness Plague Understaffed UK Hospitals
17 Nov
Summary
- Nurses working through illness due to staff shortages
- 70% of nurses exceed contracted hours weekly, 52% unpaid
- Over 25,000 nursing vacancies across UK NHS
As of November 17th, 2025, the UK's National Health Service (NHS) is facing a severe staffing crisis that is taking a devastating toll on its nursing workforce. According to a recent poll by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), workforce shortages are causing nurses to suffer from nightmares, panic attacks, and chronic illnesses related to stress.
The official NHS figures for June 2025 show an overall sickness absence rate of 4.9% among NHS staff in England, with the rate reaching 5.3% for nurses and health visitors, and 5.7% for midwives. Alarmingly, 29% of the full-time equivalent days lost to sickness were due to anxiety and/or stress, including 28% among nurses.
The RCN reports receiving dozens of calls every week to its advice line from staff suffering burnout and needing help for short-staffed wards. Many nurses feel they cannot take time off for fear of leaving their colleagues to face brutal workload pressures, with 70% working in excess of their contracted hours at least once a week, and 52% of them receiving no extra pay.
The situation has become unsustainable, with the RCN warning that there are simply too few nursing staff to meet growing demand. The union is calling for urgent investment to grow the nursing workforce and introduce safety-critical nurse-patient ratios in all health and care settings.
