Nurses On The Run From NHS

Tonight’s BBC Real Story highlighted how unhappy many nurses are working for the NHS. A large number of nurses are being attracted to work in countries like Australia, New Zealand and the USA where better pay and/or better working conditions are available.

According to the Royal College of Nursing, Australia is the favourite destination. 3,200 nurses of the 8,000 who registered to work abroad are seeking work Down Under.

Worn down by the NHS’s problems, senior intensive care nurse Sarah left her job in London for a position in Australia.

“I was sad to leave the people and my friends because the people here are brilliant but it’s just the conditions, the lack of staff, the lack of finance that I’m not sad to be leaving,” she told BBC One’s Real Story.

“You just come away each day feeling demoralised. You’ve given your utmost best yet you still can’t give the level of care that your are trained to do and would so love to give.”

She added: “I think my grievance with the NHS is a national thing – I think it is shared all over the UK.

“Everybody who works within the NHS, I think to a certain extent are disillusioned and would like change.”

Hannah Mortimer, who moved from the UK to work as a nurse in Australia two years ago said “you’re really well supported here, really well educated whereas where I used to work in the UK you’d have 12 to 15 patients and it would just be dangerous.”

“When I got here they had a strict five to one ratio – five patients to one nurse – and I just thought oh my goodness because that would never have happened in England,” she added.