Anxiety-related hospital admissions ‘costing £70 million’

The New Economics Foundation has warned that stress and anxiety-related hospital admissions are costing the NHS more than £70 million a year.

The analysis reveals that there were 17,500 episodes where stress or anxiety were noted as the primary causes for a hospital admission, contributing to 165,800 days where beds were occupied due to stress or anxiety in 2016/17. Additionally, episodes where stress or anxiety was a secondary cause amounted to 203,700 cases.

The think tank has argued that this number is likely to increase in the next year or so as a result of the number of people struggling with debt, insecure housing and work instability rise.

According to their figures, 526,000 workers suffered from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2016/17, leading to 12.5 million working days lost.

Sarah Arnold, researcher at New Economics Foundation, said: “The UK is facing a mental health crisis and it is largely due to our broken economic system. As more and more people are struggling with the pressure of debt, insecure housing, insecure work and a lack of support, the number of people dealing with stress and anxiety is only likely to increase. We need to build a new economy that works for everyone and allows us to flourish rather than burdening us with stress.”