Nearly 170,000 workers left their jobs in the NHS in England last year, in a record exodus of staff struggling to cope with some of the worst pressures ever seen in the country’s health system, the Observer can reveal. More than 41,000 nurses were among those who left their jobs in NHS hospitals and community health services, with the highest leaving rate for at least a decade. The number of staff leaving overall rose by more than a quarter in 2022, compared to 2019. The figures in NHS workforce statistics of those leaving active service since 2010 analysed by the Observer show the scale of the challenge facing prime minister Rishi Sunak. He launched a new workforce plan on Friday to train and keep more staff. Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “Staff did brilliant work during the pandemic, but there has been no respite. The data on people leaving is worrying and we need to see it reversed. “We need to focus on staff wellbeing and continued professional development, showing the employers really do care about their frontline teams.” Hartley said he welcomed the workforce plan, particularly the expansion of apprenticeship routes for clinical staff and the ambition to train more staff and reduce reliance on international recruitment and agency workers. In the year to 31 December 2022, 169,512 staff left NHS service in hospitals, community health services and other core health organisations, compared to 149,678 the previous year. The figures are for all staff, including doctors, nurses, ambulance staff, managers, support workers and technical staff. Experts believe 2022 may be a peak year for NHS departures because of those who may have deferred retirement because of the pandemic, but there has also been a surge in employees citing work-life balance as the reasons for quitting. The number of staff who quit the NHS citing work-life balance stood at 27,546 in 2022, more than those who left because they had reached retirement age (24,143). Billy Palmer, a senior fellow at the Nuffield Trust, an independent health thinktank, said it was “fairly staggering” that the number leaving the NHS citing work-life balance as a reason exceeded those who had reached retirement age under their pension scheme. Research by the Nuffield Trust has found the number of NHS workers citing work-life balance and health as reasons for leaving have roughly quadrupled in the last decade. Palmer said: “No one has been really able to explain why activity in the NHS hasn’t kept track with the increasing number of staff and I think part of that is because of the churn. “We’re filling those staff gaps quickly and increasing numbers, but it comes at a cost. We’re losing experienced people.” He said the numbers leaving last year were likely to be influenced by the pandemic and figures for the first quarter of this year showed a slight fall in the leaving rate. The government says the proportion of medical staff who leave has been broadly stable over the last decade, although an analysis by the Nuffield Trust last year found the leaving rate for nurses at the highest level in figures published from 2010. Under the NHS workforce plan, there will be an expansion of apprenticeship routes for clinical staff and more training of staff to reduce reliance on international recruitment and agency staff. There are plans to expand GP training places by 50% to 6,000 a year by 2031/32. But a survey of the members of the Royal College of General Practitioners in 2022 found 39% of the GP workforce across the UK were seriously considering leaving the profession in the next five years. GP leaders say the governments needs to do more to recognise the vital role of medical practices to retain staff. Dr David Wrigley, deputy chair of the GP committee in England, said: “The mental stress that GPs are under is incredible. Those who are in mid-career or later career and may want to stay on feel they can’t because of their mental health. “We are seeing incredibly high demand. We are delivering more and more and we are getting less and less.” NHS England says the expansion of training programmes and measures to improve retention rates could mean the health service has at least an extra 60,000 doctors and 170,000 more nurses by 2036-7. Amanda Pritchard, the NHS chief executive, said last week: “We will take practical and sustained action to retain existing talent [and] we will recruit and train hundreds of thousands more people.” An NHS spokesperson said: “The NHS long term workforce plan sets out how we will ensure we retain more of the staff we have and reform the way that they train and work so we are making the most of everyone’s education, skills and experience. “The plan includes a renewed focus on retention, with better opportunities for career development and improved flexible working options, which alongside government reforms to the pension scheme should mean around 130,000 more staff stay working in NHS settings longer over the next 15 years.”