Reflecting on retention: reasons why nurses choose to stay

The World Health Organization (2020) has reported that, worldwide, there is an estimated shortfall of 6 million registered nurses. Buchan et al (2020) attributed these shortages both to insufficient entrants to the register and to problems retaining the existing workforce.

In 2019, the government committed to increasing the numbers of nurses in the NHS in England by 50 000 by the end of the Parliamentary term—known as the ‘50 000 Nurses Programme’. In March 2022 the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) published an update of progress against this programme (DHSC, 2022a). The scope of the programme is registered nurses only and it is split into three broad areas: domestic recruitment, international recruitment, and retention of existing staff. The programme is committed to ensuring that, by 31 March 2024, there are at least an additional 50 000 full-time equivalent (FTE) nurses in place in NHS providers and GP settings, compared with the numbers in September 2019.