A helpline that provided mental health and wellbeing support to nurses and midwives has announced its closure after failing to secure enough funding to remain open.
Nurse Lifeline, which was established during the Covid-19 pandemic, announced on social media that the charity’s board of trustees had made the ‘difficult decision’ to close the charity at the end of 2024.
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In a statement on X, the charity explained how it had ‘worked tirelessly’ to secure funding from a range of sources, to ‘underpin our core costs and enable growth’.
But it added that ‘for reasons outside our influence’, the charity had been unable to secure sufficient funds to remain open.
Nurse Lifeline said it was ‘proud’ of the support it had offered to nurses and midwives who were ‘in crisis, struggling, or needed to talk’ over the past five years.
‘We will always be humbled by your courage and hope that you found support from speaking with us,’ the charity added.
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At the time, Teresa Griffiths, chair of Nurse Lifeline, had told Nursing in Practice that nurses and midwives ‘routinely’ call the support line, with complaints of feeling ‘exhausted, burnt out, demoralised and struggling with both their mental and physical health’.
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The Royal College of Nursing had also warned last summer that it had seen a 54% increase in the number of nursing staff seeking support for suicidal thoughts over a six-month period. Analysis by the college suggested that workplace pressures were a ‘central factor’ in the rise.
And in April, Doctors in Distress launched a new bereavement group in response to the high rate of suicide among the nursing community.
