Royal College of Nursing research found 79 per cent failed to get a break long enough for a healthy meal in shifts stretching up to 14 hours. Nearly two thirds questioned said workplace stress led to them snacking from vending machines.
Half said low staff levels caused by cutbacks meant they had no time to get a sit down meal in canteens that were often too far away.
And 75 per cent on nights said machine snacks like crisps were often the only food available during their shifts.
The RCN quizzed 3,500 nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants across the UK. One care home staff nurse said: “I try to eat low-fat foods but I get so hungry. I don’t get time for breaks, even on a 14-hour shift.
“We get so busy I resort to a bag of crisps. We often eat out or have a takeaway, as I’m too tired to cook.”
A nursing student said: “I used to be very fit, but I have no energy after a 13-hour shift three or four days a week.”
A nurse at a community trust said: “There’s only machine food. The nearby general hospital canteen closes at 2pm. It is pathetic.”
And a clinical nurse practitioner told the RCN: “I would like healthy food available nearer to me, so I don’t spend 15 minutes walking to get it and be left with five minutes to eat it.”
A community trust health care assistant asked: “Why not allow staff to order food on the wards?”
More than two-thirds of UK adults are clinically overweight and treating obesity-related illness costs the NHS £5billion a year.
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