Europe is facing a crisis in its health workforce, driven by age and growing burnout rates, according to a major new investigation.

Across Europe and Eurasia, 40% of doctors are already over the age of 55, the available data shows, according to the World Health Organization. WHO revealed its findings at its European conference, held in Israel. Only 13 countries were able to provide data on doctor ages.

WHO said the developing shortage was aggravated by rising burnout rates, linked to the after-effects of the pandemic. It found that in some countries, 80% of nurses reported psychological distress linked to the pandemic. According to the analysis, Europe has the highest rates of doctors globally – with 37 per 10,000 people – but there are five times variations across WHO’s European region of 53 countries.

WHO praised Ireland for its enhanced community care programme and the UK for successful recruitment of overseas nurses. It set out ten actions that countries must take, including strengthening professional development and recruiting health workers in rural and remote areas.

WHO regional director Dr Hans Henri Kluge said: “Personnel shortages, insufficient recruitment and retention, migration of qualified workers, unattractive working conditions, and poor access to continuing professional development opportunities are blighting health systems. These are compounded by inadequate data and limited analytical capacity, poor governance and management, lack of strategic planning and insufficient investment in developing the workforce. Furthermore, WHO estimates that roughly 50,000 health and care workers may have lost their lives due to COVID-19 in Europe alone.”

He added: “All these threats represent a ticking timebomb which if not addressed, are likely to lead to poor health outcomes across the board, long waiting times for treatment, many preventable deaths, and potentially even health system collapse. The time to act on health and care workforce shortages is now. Moreover, countries are responding to the challenges at a time of acute economic crisis, which demands effective, innovative and smart approaches.”

Royal College of Nursing general secretary Pat Cullen said: “This report highlights the crisis the country faces with too many nurses poised to retire and too few coming into the system.It finds a fifth of the UK’s nursing workforce is reaching retirement age and that the UK is churning out too few nursing graduates – less than the average for other European countries and less than half as many as Romania, Albania and Finland. Ministers across the UK must take note.”