Community mental health nurses have sounded the alarm over ‘unmanageable and unsafe’ workloads and the subsequent risk to patients, as part of a new survey carried out by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
The RCN is now calling for ‘sustained and significant’ investment into what it described as an ‘overwhelmed’ community mental health nursing workforce, to help address the situation.
Findings from the survey, which received 399 responses from community health nurses across the UK at the end of last year, revealed over half of respondents (51%) believe mental health patients are routinely coming to harm due to caseloads being too high.
One in four (24%) also said time pressures negatively impact patient wellbeing every single day, with excessive admin and a ‘tick-box’ culture diverting time away from delivering care.
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Nearly two-thirds (61%) of respondents said their caseloads had risen ‘a lot’ over the last three years, with only one in five (19%) describing it as ‘manageable’.
The survey findings come as new analysis from the RCN revealed that the community mental health nursing workforce has not risen alongside the demand on services, with an increase in patients amounting to five extra patients per nurse.
In England, between October 2022 and 2025, the number of people accessing community mental health services increased by 38% from almost 500,000 to near 690,000 – while the nurse workforce only increased by 15% during that period.
One nurse responding to the survey said that vulnerable patients who reach out for help from their trust have had to wait ‘weeks’ to receive a response and sometimes wouldn’t be contacted ‘at all’.
Another nurse added: ‘Every single day my nurses finish late. Every single day tasks are not completed. It is unmanageable and unsafe.’
The survey findings suggested that, consequently, nurses are now struggling with their own wellbeing, with one nurse reporting they often do not have time to ‘urinate or have a drink of water’ because of workload.
Another nurse added: ‘I do my best every day but it always feels inadequate. I am always working over to keep up.’
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The RCN’s general secretary and chief executive Professor Nicola Ranger described the situation as ‘a perfect storm’.
She, alongside the college, is calling for ‘significant, up front-investment in the mental health nursing workforce as well as improvements to digital infrastructure to reduce the need to duplicate records and free up nursing staff’.
‘It’s shocking that such poor workforce planning has allowed community mental health nurse numbers to fall so far behind demand for services,’ said Professor Ranger.
‘These highly skilled professionals are essential to improving people’s quality of life and helping them access things like work and education.
‘They also save the NHS money in the long run by bringing down waiting lists and preventing unnecessary hospitalisations.
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‘Growing this crucial workforce must be a priority for a government wanting to move from treatment to prevention and from hospital to community.
‘We now need to see sustained and significant investment in community mental health nursing and digital infrastructure to enable them to focus on patient care and improve outcomes for our most vulnerable.’