The NHS is “haemorrhaging” nurses with one in 10 now leaving the NHS in England each year, figures show

According to NHS Digital, more than 33,000 nurses walked away last year, piling pressure on understaffed hospitals and community services.

This represents a rise of 20% since 2012-13 meaning that at present there are more leavers than joiners. Nurse leaders describe it as a “dangerous and downward spiral”, while NHS bosses claim that the problem is being tackled.

The figures have been compiled as part of an in-depth look at nursing by the BBC.

Where are the nurses going?

The figures do not specifically identify where all the nurses went, but destinations include going overseas to work and joining the private sector which include agencies, drug firms and hospitals. Some are eligible to retire at 55 on a full pension (representing a fifth of the total or 2% of overall leavers), and others are leaving to pursue other careers.

Royal College of Nursing head Janet Davies said: “The government must lift the NHS out of this dangerous and downward spiral. We are haemorrhaging nurses at precisely the time when demand has never been higher. The next generation of British nurses aren’t coming through just as the most experienced nurses are becoming demoralised and leaving.”

She said nurses needed a pay rise and more support if the vacancy rate – currently running at one in nine posts – was not to increase further. “Most patient care is given by NHS nurses and each time the strain ratchets up again they are the ones who bear the brunt of it,” she added.

The chief nursing officer for England, Professor Jane Cummings said: “We’re in the process of bringing in lots of nurse ambassadors that are going to be able to talk about what a great role it is, to be able to tell their story, so we can really encourage people to enter the profession and for those in the profession, to stay in it.”

Programmes are being implemented by NHS Improvement and hospitals to try to retain staff. These include master classes for all directors of nursing and HR leads, the introduction of internal “transfer” systems to allow nurses to move jobs more easily, mentoring schemes and “itchy feet” interviews – giving nurses the opportunity to discuss with bosses why they may leave. However, these still do not address the “workforce problem” and it retaining nurses is becoming more of a challenge.

The government is increasing the number of nurse training places by 5,000 this year – a rise of 25% – but it will be three years before these nurses graduate.

The Department of Health and Social Care in England has been quick to point out that the number of nurses employed by the NHS has risen; they have picked May 2010 as their starting point, claiming there were 11,700 more nurses on our wards since then. However, if you look at the entire nursing workforce their numbers have increased by just under 3,000 which equates to a rise of 1% bringing the total number of nurses to 283,853. Meanwhile, according to the Office for National Statistics, the population has grown by 5% during this period.

Also, if you look at nearly any measure of NHS demand – from GP referrals and diagnostic tests to emergency admissions and A&E visits – the increase is somewhere between 10% and 20%.

Amanda Cavanagh, a medical negligence specialist at Ashtons Legal, says: “Nurses are the backbone of the NHS, without them the NHS would crumble. Unfortunately we are seeing a rise in avoidable negative incidents as a result of a lack of nursing staff in wards. Instead of employing more outside agency staff to plug the gap, at an over inflated cost, more could and should be done to retain the existing nursing staff and increase permanent staff numbers”.