The medic explains why she became a nurse, what she saw, how the NHS is struggling, how she felt after each twelve-hour day and why she’s quit. She also asks the public to be patient and not to blame staff after she read online comments made about doctors and nurses.

She says she was ‘inspired’ to join the medical profession but ”something has changed within the NHS” The nurse says ”…beds have been lost, smaller hospitals have been closed, mental health services have been starved of funding and jobs cut, funding has been cut year on year”.

She adds that ”the numbers of acutely unwell patients coming into the emergency departments is increasing but the services and facilities available to us is declining.”

The nurse says hospitals have ‘no space’ and ”no extra staff to help with the extra work load”. She adds: ”The demand is so much on so few that you are in a position that you are just trying to keep people alive and prevent harm.” She says they have no time to support patients or families and they have no time to offer emotional support and comfort.

She writes: ”You live with a chronic guilt as you cannot provide the care that you want to give every individual, basic tasks like helping someone wash or eat just cannot be done and it pains me to admit that there have been times I have not been able to help someone.”

The anonymous nurse says staff have no time for loo or food breaks and the workload ”has an effect on your own physical and mental health”. She added: Only at the end of your twelve-hour shift when your other nursing colleges take over for the next shift are you able to sit down and do your paper work, meaning having to stay an extra hour or two late (unpaid), you go home exhausted, despairing and listing all the things you haven’t done. You go to bed, wake up and do it all over again.

”The NHS should be the envy of the world but it has been treated so poorly that even with all the will and dedication of all staff involved it is struggling to provide even basic care.”