A&E nurse makes plea for more staff mental health and wellbeing support

Kirsty Brewerton, who has worked as a band 5 staff nurse in a busy emergency department for the past five years, described how she was frequently left caring for corridors full of sick patients on her own and said her working environment was “like a war zone”.

“I just feel you can’t do a good job – you can’t give people the care they deserve and it is just heart-breaking and every shift is soul-destroying,” she said.

Ms Brewerton said she had never wanted to do any other than nursing for a career, because “nothing could be more important”.

“I was shaking, sweating and getting really panicky and wanted to get out of the room”

Kirsty Brewerton

However, in an interview with Nursing Times, she revealed that she had considered leaving the profession for good, despite being chosen to do a master’s degree in advanced practice.

She described how she had been happy and confident in her work but staffing shortages, and the stress of trying to juggle work and extra study had taken their toll.

“I would get really overwhelmed doing a canula or taking someone’s blood – things I could have done with my eyes closed before,” she said.

“I was shaking, sweating and getting really panicky and wanted to get out of the room. I just felt useless,” she added.

Ms Brewerton, who was signed off sick from work for several months due to stress, she said she believed the pressures and lack of support she had experienced were common across the NHS.

“You go home from shifts and you are terrified that you have missed something and unintentionally caused someone harm,” she said.

“I don’t think I realised it was having such an impact on my mental health until I got to the point where I was suicidal”

Kirsty Brewerton

She said a key issue was the fact she was not given extra time to do the practical side of her master’s course, which meant she had to come in on her days off or use annual leave to get it done and could no longer do bank shifts to supplement her income.

“Throughout the course, I was struggling and needed more time and more input. But I don’t think I realised it was having such an impact on my mental health until I got to the point where I was suicidal,” she said.

She went off sick from work in the summer and referred herself for therapy. She also sought help from the occupational health department at her trust and was referred for counselling but this never happened. She has since managed to access counselling via her GP.

Ms Brewerton, who has now got a bank nursing job with a different trust, said she realised she could not return to work in A&E and had thought about giving up nursing altogether.

“With staffing how it is – and such a widespread problem – I just don’t know how that is going to be magically fixed to a degree that I’m going to feel it is healthy for me to go back,” she said.

“But this is what I am trained to do and I feel like I can’t just give up without trying somewhere else.”

Kirsty Brewerton

She went on to highlight the need for better mental health support for nurses from employers, universities, and regulators, including resilience training and more emotional support from managers.

“I don’t understand why we have things like manual handling training but there is nothing for mental health,” she said.

“I feel like we are so at risk, but there is nothing to minimise that risk. It wasn’t until it was really bad that I knew I was in trouble, so just having an awareness of common symptoms would have helped.”

She said it was especially important for new nurses to feel they had someone they could turn to and that she would also like to see senior staff trained in counselling techniques.

Meanwhile, she said all NHS staff should have instant access to professional counselling services if needed.

Ms Brewerton said she was particularly disappointed that a 24-hour helpline launched by health and care secretary Matt Hancock last year that was only available to doctors and dentists.

During the general election campaign in December, the Conservatives pledged to retain 19,000 nurses who might otherwise leave the profession.

“I am one of those 19,000 they’re hoping they are going to cling onto and there is absolutely nothing they are doing or saying that is in any way winning me over,” said Ms Brewerton.

“If you are going to try and retain staff, then surely mental health is something you really need to be concentrating on and putting a lot of energy into, because the NHS is not a very nice place to work at the minute,” she said.

The Laura Hyde Foundation - set up in memory of nurse Laura Hyde - campaigns for better mental health support for nurses and other health professionals. For more information go to www.laurahydefoundaton.org