One in three NHS doctors so tired their ability to treat patients is affected, survey finds

One in three doctors in the NHS are so tired that their ability to treat patients is impaired, according to a report that reveals medics are more sleep deprived now than during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Longer hours, staff shortages and soaring demand for care on top of the backlog that worsened during the Covid crisis are causing extreme tiredness among doctors, leading to memory blanks, problems concentrating and patient harm.

More than one-third (35%) of doctors said they were so tired that their ability to treat patients was impaired, according to the survey conducted by the Medical Defence Union (MDU), which provides legal support to about 200,000 doctors, nurses, dentists and other healthcare workers across the UK.

A further third (34%) said their ability to practise medicine may have been impaired. Of the 69% who said extreme tiredness had or may have impaired their ability to treat patients, one in four (26%) said one of their patients had been harmed or a near miss had occurred as a result.

When doctors last answered confidential questions about tiredness in February 2022, nearly one in 10 (9%) said they felt sleep deprived at work on a daily basis. Three years on, the proportion affected had more than doubled to one in five (22%).

The proportion of medics saying extreme tiredness had impaired their ability to treat patients was 26% in 2022 and 35% in 2025.

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Source: The Guardian, 3 March 2025

Further reading on the hub:

• Managing fatigue as part of a safety culture – a blog from Nancy Redfern, Emma Plunkett and Roopa McCrossan
• Why we need to manage fatigue in the NHS – a blog from Nancy Redfern and Emma Plunkett
• Fatigue | Association of Anaesthetists