NHS workers took more than six million sick days last year because of poor mental health, figures show.
Labour ’s Dr Rosena Allin-Khan warned that overstretched services are putting extra pressure on hard-working staff.
Speaking at Unison’s national delegate conference she pledged that the next Labour Government will tackle the growing mental health crisis.
Figures show that in the last year alone, 6.1million days were taken off work by NHS staff because of mental health issues.
On top of this, 400,662 mental health sick days were taken by ambulance staff, 733,244 by police and 93,790 by those working for the fire service.
Dr Allin-Khan said: “No-one’s work should make them anxious and ill. Everyone should have rewarding and fulfilling work, including the NHS workers who bring us into the world, and hold our hands as we leave it.”
She added: “Good mental health is a right for everyone, and a central job of a Labour Government is to remove preventable pain and avoidable disease from the lives of our citizens.
“Labour will guarantee treatment within a month for all that need it – better for patients, better for the NHS.”
Waiting lists for routine NHS procedures have soared to a record high as ministers struggle to tackle backlogs.
More than 7.42million patients in England - or one in eight people - are now in the queue for operations such as hip replacements, according to figures published last week.
This includes 370,000 people who have been waiting for longer than a year.
Health unions have demanded that the government get on with publishing its long-delayed NHS workforce plan.
According to latest figures, there are over 40,000 nurse vacancies in the NHS in England.
The number of community and district nurses has fallen by 46.9%. Together with this crisis in social care, this is leaving thousands of people who are fit enough to go home stuck in hospital beds.
Labour has pledged to train an extra 7,500 doctors and 10,000 nurses a year, paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status.
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