image: ©seb_ra | iStock

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warns that persistent staffing shortages are leaving teams overwhelmed and struggling to deliver safe, timely care, with growing concern over the impact on patient outcomes and service access.

In a new RCN survey, 51% said they believed mental health patients frequently come to harm because caseloads are too high, while one in four (24%) say time pressures negatively impact patient wellbeing every single day, such as avoidable deterioration, relapse, or self-harm.

Nurses report that excessive administrative tasks and a prevailing ‘tick-box’ culture consume valuable time, detract from direct patient care, and increase pressure on already stretched resources.

The RCN is now urging immediate and substantial investment in community services and the community mental health nursing workforce. They call for targeted funding and the implementation of robust recruitment and retention strategies to address dangerous understaffing and transform care for vulnerable patients.g.

These survey findings highlight the gap between rising patient demand and the staffing levels of community mental health nurses. In England, between October 2022 and October 2025, the number of people accessing community mental health services increased from 499,730 to 689,769 (38%), growing more than twice as fast as the nursing workforce, which increased from just 20,171 to 23,280 (15%).

Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, said: “With too few staff, overwhelming caseloads and excessive admin, community mental health nursing teams are caught in a perfect storm. It means that despite working exceptionally hard, they just cannot meet rising demand. The result is vulnerable people with mental ill health going without care and nursing staff feeling deeply distressed as patients deteriorate.

“It’s shocking that such poor workforce planning has allowed community mental health nurse numbers to fall so far behind demand for services. These highly skilled professionals are crucial 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.”

Nicola continued: “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.”