Cancer nurses at breaking point as quit rate hits ten-year high
Posted 28 July 2023 - 07:00
Macmillan Cancer Support has called for urgent action from government to boost nurse numbers in cancer care, warning that personalised care is being compromised
Cancer nurses are at breaking point with the number of health and care staff leaving the profession at a ten-year high, a charity has warned.
Flagging cancer workforce needs boosting to cope with rising number of cancer patients
Macmillan Cancer Support chief nursing officer Claire Taylor called for urgent government action to build England’s NHS cancer workforce as nurses’ job satisfaction and morale plummets.
Analysis by the charity show 4,378 staff left NHS hospital and community cancer services in the 12 months to September 2022 which, it says, is a ten-year high.
While the cancer workforce has grown around 50% since 2010, it has failed to keep pace with a 191% increase in people being seen by a specialist for suspected cancer.
Ms Taylor said: ‘Working in the NHS as a cancer nurse consultant, I am acutely aware that the ongoing workforce crisis is being felt deeply by cancer nurses up and down the country.
‘The cancer workforce is exhausted and overworked and what’s needed now is government intervention. What are they waiting for?
Workload is affecting quality of personalised care, says cancer charity chief
‘Developing a specialist cancer workforce of the future will take many years, but cancer nurses are at breaking point now. Overwhelming workloads are preventing nurses from being able to deliver the personalised care they want to provide for their patients, while stretching their job satisfaction and morale thin.’
Further research from the charity suggests that 25% of people with cancer in England who were diagnosed in the past ten years felt they lacked the support they needed from a specialist cancer nurse, rising to 28% of those diagnosed within the past five years and 29% of all people currently undergoing cancer treatment.
NHS cancer waiting times in England are entering their tenth year of decline.
Macmillan said that, without clarity from the government, it was concerned many more NHS professionals will leave the workforce, which could lead to waiting times for treatment and diagnosis getting even worse.
NHS workforce plan ‘lacks detail’ of recruitment plans, says Macmillan
It said the NHS workforce plan for England outlined promising commitments but lacks crucial detail around what it will mean for the cancer workforce in the long term.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘The NHS workforce has never been bigger and we have made significant progress in developing and growing the cancer workforce.
‘But there is more to do. Our recently published NHS Long Term Workforce Plan will deliver the biggest training expansion in NHS history, recruit hundreds of thousands more staff and address staff leaving rates, which are already decreasing.’
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