I asked this question to get NHS management to concentrate on high rates of turnover and loss rates from NHS employment. The easiest source of expanding the workforce must surely be to persuade more people to stay?
The Department of Health and Social Care has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (123841):
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the main reasons given by nurses and doctors are for leaving NHS employment. (123841)
Tabled on: 16 January 2023
Answer:
Will Quince:
Data is collected from staff leaving service in National Health Service trusts and commissioning bodies through the Electronic Staff Record on reasons for leaving but has a high percentage of instances where reasons are unknown, 39% for doctors and 41% for nurses and health visitors. Where reasons are provided, the highest number of NHS trust and commissioning body doctors left those bodies due the end of fixed term contracts. This is high as it covers junior doctors moving out of those settings to others, such as general practice, on rotation. This was followed by voluntary resignation reasons and retirement. For nurses and health visitors, the highest proportion of staff recording a reason, left due to voluntary resignation and reaching retirement age. A table of the reason of leaving and the number of staff is attached.
The following documents were submitted as part of the answer and are appended to this email:
1. File name: FORMATTED PQ123841 Leavers by reason for leaving and specified staff group, Jun21 to Jun22 (1).xlsx
Description: Attachment
| Reason for leaving | Hospital and Community Health Service (HCHS) doctors | Nurses and health visitors | |
| Bank Staff not fulfilled minimum work requirement | 16 | 14 | |
| Death in Service | 35 | 209 | |
| Dismissal – Capability | 17 | 202 | |
| Dismissal – Conduct | 23 | 109 | |
| Dismissal – Some Other Substantial Reason | 16 | 83 | |
| Dismissal – Statutory Reason | 3 | 7 | |
| Employee Transfer | 65 | 254 | |
| End of Fixed Term Contract | 3995 | 340 | |
| End of Fixed Term Contract – Completion of Training Scheme | 1299 | 32 | |
| End of Fixed Term Contract – End of Work Requirement | 196 | 62 | |
| End of Fixed Term Contract – External Rotation | 1433 | 2 | |
| End of Fixed Term Contract – Other | 466 | 84 | |
| Flexi Retirement | 57 | 304 | |
| Has Not Worked | 9 | 10 | |
| Mutually Agreed Resignation – Local Scheme with Repayment | 0 | 24 | |
| Mutually Agreed Resignation – National Scheme with Repayment | 2 | 4 | |
| Pregnancy | 0 | 5 | |
| Redundancy – Compulsory | 8 | 8 | |
| Redundancy – Voluntary | 5 | 30 | |
| Retirement – Ill Health | 44 | 287 | |
| Retirement Age | 1016 | 5490 | |
| Voluntary Early Retirement – no Actuarial Reduction | 43 | 361 | |
| Voluntary Early Retirement – with Actuarial Reduction | 50 | 191 | |
| Voluntary Resignation – Adult Dependants | 30 | 197 | |
| Voluntary Resignation – Better Reward Package | 61 | 574 | |
| Voluntary Resignation – Child Dependants | 40 | 413 | |
| Voluntary Resignation – Health | 61 | 879 | |
| Voluntary Resignation – Incompatible Working Relationships | 17 | 204 | |
| Voluntary Resignation – Lack of Opportunities | 35 | 233 | |
| Voluntary Resignation – Other/Not Known | 1437 | 3495 | |
| Voluntary Resignation – Promotion | 220 | 1496 | |
| Voluntary Resignation – Relocation | 798 | 3536 | |
| Voluntary Resignation – To undertake further education or training | 268 | 380 | |
| Voluntary Resignation – Work Life Balance | 380 | 4231 | |
| Unknown | 7743 | 16681 | |
| Total of leavers | 19846 | 40365 | |
| Source: NHS Digital NHS Hospital and Community Health Service (HCHS) workforce statistics. | |||
| Notes: | |||
| 1. Leavers data are based on headcount and shows staff leaving active service, this would include those going on maternity leave or career break, for example. | |||
| 2.Data are calculated on an annual basis in this analysis so leaver figures for 30 June 2021 to 30 June 2022 for example represent staff records that are present in June 2021 but are not present in June 2022. | |||
| 3. Leavers records are linked to a separate ESR Reasons for Leaving dataset. In many instances the Reason for Leaving record has not been completed, which accounts for the Unknown records. | |||
| 4. Totals for NHS leavers that are different to the sum of constituent parts indicate where staff have left the NHS in more than one post. | |||
| 5. ”-‘ denotes zero | |||
The answer was submitted on 24 Jan 2023 at 10:19.
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