Four out of five healthcare workers have considered leaving their job in the NHS, and an overwhelming majority (84%) of those have thought about it more in the past year, a Guardian survey has found.

Increasing workloads, cuts to the health service, unreasonable expectations and long working hours are some of the factors they say are damaging the lives of NHS professionals at a time of escalated pressure.

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Almost half (43%) of the 1,843 respondents to the survey by the Guardian’s Healthcare Professionals Network said they felt unreasonably stressed at work most or all of the time. Seventy per cent said their work stress levels had risen over the past year.

One GP said: “I really worry about the long days and sheer volume of patient contacts. I’m so scared of making a mistake. No one has any idea of all the extra work we do in an average day, eg prescriptions, running the practice, administration on top of at least 50 contacts a day … It’s madness.”

The findings came after thousands of junior doctors in England took industrial action on Wednesday over a proposed new contract from the government that would see them working on Saturdays without receiving premium pay. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, announced on Thursday that the contract would be imposed on junior doctors after a deadline to accept a “best and final” offer passed on Wednesday night passed without agreement. Meanwhile, nurses, midwives and other allied health professionals are in uproar over proposed cuts to student bursaries.

In the Guardian survey another health professional wrote: “I work in theatres, we often have no essential equipment items and spend a lot of time borrowing from theatre to theatre. My team do not get coffee breaks, so often work a full 10-hour shift with only a half-hour lunch break – it’s exhausting. We have vacancies that cannot be filled and people are regularly asked to work on days off or when on leave. The management style is cold and callous, only thinking about numbers and fines. [It’s a] soul-destroying atmosphere.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eight in 10 paramedics say stress has caused them to lose sleep. Photograph: Dimitris Legakis/Athena Pictures

The survey ran from 9-31 December 2015 and was sent out to network members via an email newsletter. It was also promoted via Twitter and Facebook. Network readers were also invited to take part through the Guardian website.

Half the respondents said stress had damaged their family and/or personal life while almost a quarter said they had received counselling or medical treatment as a result of work stress. Almost half (43%) felt less confident in carrying out their work; the same number suffered from stress and anxiety or panic attacks, while almost a quarter had turned to tobacco, alcohol or drugs to help. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they did not get enough support from their employer to help them deal with stress.

One respondent said: “If I don’t finish work until 10pm, I don’t spend enough time with my partner. If I don’t work until that time, I don’t complete the work needed, and this causes problems, stress and complaints the next day. I don’t have time for exercise … at the weekends, I do little apart from sleep. When I am on holiday, I start to have panic attacks as the time to go back to work approaches.”

A paramedic said ambulances were short of staff and basic equipment. She reported violence and aggression from patients and their relatives and said she felt unsupported by management after “horrific incidents”. She added: “I grieve for the enthusiastic, idealistic girl who joined almost 20 years ago to help [people] at the worst time of [their] life.”

The findings also show that:

• Seventy-two per cent of respondents said they always or mostly worked more hours than contracted.

• Almost a quarter (22%) always skipped breaks while 40% did so most of the time.

• Seventy-two per cent said stress had caused them to lose sleep, 43% had developed headaches and 36% said it had made them cry. The findings were especially stark among paramedics – with 82% saying stress had caused them to lose sleep and 59% saying it had increased their consumption of tobacco, alcohol or drugs.

• Eighty-three per cent of all respondents said that money-saving measures over the past five years had increased their workload. Sixty-eight per cent said the cuts had caused their salary to go down (in real terms) and 47% said they had led to staff cuts.

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One manager in an NHS hospital said permanent staff had left and not been replaced, adding: “People on fixed-term contracts are only having them renewed until the end of March as the trust doesn’t seem to know what their spend is for the next year.”

Medical bodies such as the Royal College of GPs and Royal College of Nursing have warned that the demands on healthcare staff are already too large and set to grow, and that the result is an increased threat to patient safety.

Dr Maureen Baker, chair of the RCGP, said that GPs would have more than 370m patient consultations this year – an increase of 60m in five years. Despite the increase in workload, the workforce has remained stagnant and over the past 10 years funding has declined.

She said: “Individual GPs are currently seeing too many patients a day to be safe. At the end of a long day in clinic, we will still have a mountain of paperwork to get through. This relentless pressure is a threat to our own health and our patients’ safety.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Junior doctors on strike in Gloucestershire. Photograph: Charlie Bryan/Barcroft Media

Josie Irwin, head of employment relations at the RCN, said nursing staff were under similar pressure and struggling financially thanks to a 10% real terms pay cut over five years.

She said: “It’s hardly surprising that work-related stress is on the rise and more staff than ever are considering leaving … The NHS cannot afford to lose its experienced and hardworking staff, but that is exactly what will happen if things continue as they are. And if experienced people leave, it is patients who will pay the price.”

Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe, national officer for health at Unite, said the union’s members felt undervalued by their management and the government, but that they hoped to hold on to their jobs for as long as possible, providing stress and anxiety did not get to them first. He said: “The government and NHS Employers cannot continue to ignore these direct messages from NHS workers.”

The Department of Health said: “We’ve committed to an extra £10bn a year to fund the NHS’s own plan for the future and this includes making sure that all staff have enough time and support to give good care.”