Data Insight: Commuting patterns among nurses and midwives in England & Wales

This Data Insight by Dr Michelle Jamieson analyses data relating to nurses and midwives and others of similar social grade. 

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Summary

Active travel has benefits to individual and wider society. For individuals, walking and cycling contributes to better physical and mental health. More widely, fewer cars contribute to cleaner air. The concept of the health promoting hospital might include facilitating employees to choose to walk or cycle. Nurses and midwives together form the largest single health profession. Ascertaining their proximity to work and commuting behaviours relative to others in similar levels of occupation provides a baseline for policy. 

Such an analysis has been enabled by the Individual Microdata Sample. This comprises of a 5% random sample drawn from the Census 2021 for England and Wales and contains around three million records. We used this to investigate commuting among nurses and midwives, and to compare these with other professionals in similar socio-economic groups. It contains eighty-nine variables covering a range of social and demographic aspects. Notably for this study, it included indication of occupation, proximity to work, and main means of commuting.

Around 60% of people analysed lived within 10 km from of their place of work, a distance within which active travel is feasible. Yet over 70% of both groups travelled to work by car.

What we found

For both groups, the majority commuted between 5 and 20 kilometres (Figure 1). Around 23% of other professionals and 22% of nurses and midwives commuted 10–20 km, while 19% of nurses and midwives and 20% of others travelled 5–10 km. This broad similarity underscores that nurses and midwives generally share commuting patterns with other comparable professionals, though some differences were evident.

Nurses and midwives were more likely to live close to their workplace: 17% of nurses and midwives lived within 2 km compared with 14% of others, and 20% of nurses and midwives lived 2–5 km away compared with 17%. At the far end of the scale, 1.5% of nurses and midwives travelled 60 km or more, compared with 2.7% of other professionals.

Car remained the dominant mode of transport (Figure 2), used by nearly three quarters of both groups (74% of nurses and midwives and 78% of other professionals). Relative to this baseline, nurses and midwives were more likely to travel by bus (6.0% compared with 3.4%) and on foot (10.5% compared with 7.8%), and less likely to use rail (3.8% compared with 7.2%). Use of bicycles and other modes formed only a small proportion for both groups.

Within the nursing and midwifery group, men were more likely than women to have long commutes of 20 km or more. Nurses who travelled by rail were far more likely to have long journeys than those who used cars or buses. Older nurses and midwives were more likely to live near their workplaces, and those working long hours were more likely to travel longer distances.

Why it matters

Aside from the benefits of active travel, commuting is an important part of nurses’ and midwives’ lives. Long commute times make long workdays longer with implications for their own health and for caregiving ability. It also has additional economic costs that can adversely affect disposable income. Conversely, willingness to travel further can improve career opportunities and enable higher salaries to be achieved.

That we have found that most people, including nurses and midwives, are living relatively close to their place of work is encouraging. Given relatively large proportions of nurses and midwives live close to their place of work, ensuring hospitals and other clinical workplaces give choice that enables walking and cycling could increase uptake.

This fits with the concept of Health Promoting Hospitals, which embed health promotion into everyday operations and workplace policies. Facilitating active travel through walk- and cycle-friendly routes, cycle storage, and showers could improve staff wellbeing. Potential benefits might include reduced sickness absence and align with wider public health and sustainability goals. In doing so, hospitals would act not only as places of care but also as role models for healthier lifestyles within their communities.