Emergency worker mental ill health in spotlight ahead of local elections

Emergency workers took more than a million sick days because of stress and mental ill health last year, according to figures released by the Labour Party, which has ramped up the pressure on the government over the state of the NHS and public services ahead of next month’s local elections.

According to figures released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the party, sick days have gone up 40% in the past five years, from 870,198 in 2017/18 and 1,227,696 in 2021/22.

Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, shadow mental health minister and an A&E doctor, said: “These figures are a damning indictment of the impact of Conservative mismanagement that has left our brave frontline staff at breaking point.”

According to the figures, published in The Mirror newspaper, mental health sick days in the fire service rose from 81,484 to 93,790, said Labour. Mental health sick days roughly doubled among ambulance workers, to more than 400,000 last year. The north west saw a 120% increase and the West Midlands 146%.

Labour also warned that ambulance crews are spending 1.8m hours a year – or the equivalent of 75,000 days – dealing with patients with mental health problems.

Dr Allin-Khan said the data, analysed from NHS figures, showed that number of 999 calls ambulance services were getting which involved mental health issues was rising every year.

England’s 10 NHS regional ambulance services received 524,485 such 999 calls in 2018-19. That number increased to 652,720 in 2021-22 – a rise of 24%, it highlighted in The Guardian newspaper.

Finally, Labour has published figures suggesting that nearly five million patients each month in England are now waiting more than a fortnight for a GP appointment.

The figures, again taken from NHS data and reported by the BBC, have been branded as “unacceptable” by Labour shadow health and social care secretary Wes Streeting.

The party has said it intends to train 7,500 more doctors and 10,000 more nurses a year should it win power at the next General Election.

In response, Professor Kamila Hawthorne, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said around 85% of appointments in general practice were already happening within two weeks of being booked.

“Almost half are delivered on the day they are booked – and those taking longer than two weeks after booking may be routine or regular appointments for which the timing is therefore appropriate,” she said.

“We share our patients’ frustration when they struggle to access our care, however, this is not down to GPs and their hard-working teams, but due to decades of under-funding and poor resource planning. We are delivering more appointments overall compared to before the pandemic, but with 852 fewer full-time fully qualified GPs compared to 2019,” Professor Hawthorne added.