A survey by MDDUS, a medical defence organisation reports that two in three UK doctors are suffering “moral distress” caused by the enfeebled state of the NHS and the damage the cost of living crisis is inflicting on patients’ health.
Large numbers are ending up psychologically damaged by feeling they cannot give patients the best possible care because of problems they cannot overcome, such as long waits for treatment or lack of drugs or the fact that poverty or bad housing is making them ill.
A new survey found that 65% of doctors overall, including nearly four in five (78%) GPs and more than half (56%) of hospital doctors, have experienced “moral distress” as a direct result of situations they have encountered working in the NHS.
“There’s barely a doctor at work in the NHS today who doesn’t see or experience this distress on a daily basis,” said Prof Philip Banfield, the leader of the British Medical Association.
The NHS is “impossibly overstretched”, has thousands of vacancies for doctors and has a quarter fewer doctors a head of population than Germany, he added.
Full story in The Guardian, 28 December 2023