Nurses 'walking out of jobs due to pressure'

The NHS is losing 'crucial' frontline staff who are quitting due to poor working conditions and threats to their jobs, it was warned today.

The country's top nurse said there is already evidence of nurses walking out on the health service unable to cope with 'unrealistic demands'.

In an interview with the Standard, Andrea Spyropoulos also issued a warning to the government saying strike action could be taken if ministers continue to treat the key workers unfairly.

The president of the Royal College of Nursing said: "There is a constant push on their time. I have spoken to one theatre nurse who retired early because she could no longer cope with the stress.

"There is a national shortage of theatre nurses, so we need these people but they are being driven out because they don't feel they can give patients the care they deserve because of the demands on their time.

"This is a pattern we are going to see. There are crucial people who will just walk because they just can't cope."

In the first time in the union's history she raised the prospect of strike action. She said: "The last time we were in this situation was in the 1970s when the government of the day was thrown out of power because we stood up and spoke out.

"Nurses see industrial action as a last resort but it can't be ruled out. What I would say to the Government is, we are serious, we cannot go on as we are and enough is enough."

Under plans being discussed at the at the RCN's annual conference in Liverpool, nurses would refuse to work more than their contracted hours, take all their allotted meal breaks and decline to fill in paperwork outside their normal job description.

The move puts further pressure on the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, who will meet nurses' representatives at the congress tomorrow. He is already under huge pressure over his controversial health reforms.

Cecilia Peters, a third year student nurse at King's College University, said: "I would like to say I am in this for the long haul but there are so many cuts and threats to the profession that nursing is just not patient-focused anymore. The costs of everything is rising and we graduates and also newly qualified nurses are not looking forward to what's in store."

The 20-year-old from Westferry, east London, added: "I wanted to become a nurse because I want to help people and care for people but if I can't do that and I'm constantly battling other things, there may be a point when I can no longer do it."

Andy McGovern, 43, a matron at an east London hospital, said: "The NHS is in danger of losing some of its best people. It's a very difficult job and with all the pressures at the moment, people are starting to think, there are alternatives."