Adam Kay shares experience as NHS doctor for Bath Uni study

Comedian Adam Kay has spoken of the difficulties in getting support while he was working as an NHS doctor.

Alongside 33 current frontline workers, comedian Harry Hill and medic Dr Phil Hammond, Mr Kay shared his experience of working in the NHS as part of a University of Bath study.

The study looked at staff retention in NHS emergency care.

Mr Kay told academics knowing he was in “an environment where you were allowed to struggle” would have helped him.

However, Mr Kay said the service had a culture “whereby it’s a badge of honour to work as hard as possible, to never say anything is the matter, to constantly plough on” and to ‘get on with it'”.

The study from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and the University of Bath found there were multiple issues when it came to staff retention at the service, including a culture of blame and negativity in hospitals, untenable working environments as well as a perceived general lack of support for staff, leading to burnout and low morale.

Parallels were also drawn between “being at war and working on the NHS front line”.

While working as an NHS doctor, Mr Kay described once being asked if he was pregnant after he enquired about going part-time.

“It was the only way they could see that someone might need to be less than full time.”

Mr Kay said he was also once belittled by one of his bosses after he told them he may “need to step away” for a while.

While Mr Kay said he imagines the situation in the NHS has improved since he left a decade ago, fellow former doctor Mr Hill said former colleagues who still work in the service have “run out of goodwill.”

On his experience, Mr Hill said: “Medical staff were very cold and uninterested. No-one was interested in us as people.”

“The consultants really had an attitude of ‘we had to do it, get on with it’, he added.

Mr Hill said he may have remained in the service if “someone had once asked me: ‘How are you getting on’?”

Meanwhile, Dr Hammond said that working in the health service was “unremittingly knackering” and he does not “think the job is going to get any less stressful”.

According to the Royal College of Nursing, almost 27,000 people left the register in the past year, with more than half leaving earlier than planned due to burnout, workload, and concerns over care quality.

Dr Jo Daniels, from the University of Bath, who lead the study in collaboration with the University of Bristol and UWE Bristol said: “A common thread that emerged across our interviews was the critical importance of leadership in hospitals.”

A spokesperson for NHS England said they had set out measures to improve culture, leadership and wellbeing for staff through the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, which they hope will “ensure up to 130,000 fewer staff leave the health service over the next 15 years.

“The equivalent of 14,000 fewer staff left the NHS in the year to August 2023 compared to the year before, thanks to measures such as more flexible working, clinical support to help menopausal women at work, and HR ‘stay advocates’ who find ways to keep staff considering leaving,” they added.