For a quarter of a century, Maggy devoted herself to her work as a district nurse in Lancashire, forging close bonds with the people she cared for in the northern English county.

But last month she took early retirement, concerned that she and her colleagues were expected to see ever greater numbers of patients each day, an approach she believed was incompatible with good care. “I love the job dearly and miss it but there are so many pressures on us now and we cannot give the care to our patients that we should be giving them,” she said.

The decision by Maggy, who did not want to give her full name, will be no surprise to the profession’s leaders. They warn that issues ranging from anger at the prospect of a sub-inflation pay rise to Brexit, which has dimmed the country’s lustre for European nurses, threaten to deepen staff shortages just as the NHS is attempting to restore services devastated by the pandemic.