NHS staffing crisis: More than 200,000 nurses have resigned since 2010

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More than 200,000 nurses have quit the NHS since 2010, official figures have revealed.

The number quitting because they're unhappy with their work-life balance has almost tripled in the same period.

There has been a 73 per cent rise in nurses leaving for health reasons, and 69 per cent more resigned because of a lack of opportunities in 2018 than in 2011.

The damning figures come as the NHS is in the grip of a staffing and hospital crisis, with experts saying last month may have been its toughest ever.

Labour Party research has uncovered the stats and the party called them 'utterly staggering'.

All NHS staff who left their jobs between 2010-11 and 2017-18 were included in the data – taking in a total of 896,917 employees, 200,586 of them nurses.

The most common reasons for nurses quitting the health service were retirement or relocation, whereas the biggest category was an unknown reason.

In 2018 2,910 nurses and health visitors quit because they didn't like their work-life balance, up from 1,069 in 2011.

Meanwhile, 544 nurses quit for health reasons (up from 315), and 221 resigned because of a lack of opportunities (up from 131).

There are almost 40,000 empty nurse jobs in England and these figures highlight the NHS's struggle to hold onto the staff it already has, critics said.

'It’s utterly staggering that our NHS has lost over 200,000 nurses under the Tories and that voluntary resignations from the NHS is up 55 per cent,' said Jonathan Ashworth, Labour's Shadow Health Secretary.

'We are facing a retention crisis in our NHS and standards which staff should expect – enshrined in the NHS Constitution – have simply been abandoned.'

A total of 26,776 NHS nurses resigned in 2017-18, up more than a quarter (27 per cent) from 21,041 in 2010-11.

During the time period covered by these statistics the Government has axed the bursaries for people studying nursing or

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