More nurses, midwives in landmark NSW government push

Hundreds of new nurses and midwives are set to be recruited and deployed in a landmark NSW government push to rollout safe staffing levels across the state.

NSW Premier Chris Minns, left, and Health Minister Ryan Park at Royal North Shore Hospital. Picture: Nikki Short

Hundreds of new nurses and midwives are set to be recruited and deployed at hospitals across the state in a landmark NSW government push to rollout safe staffing levels across the state.

The move is one of the largest health workforce reforms in state history and would eventually align NSW’s staffing ratios with Victoria and, in some cases, taking it above.

From March 1, The Australian can reveal, hundreds of additional nurses and midwives will be recruited, with the first cohorts going to hospitals with level five and six emergency departments – the state’s busiest EDs at the largest hospitals.

Liverpool Hospital and Royal North Shore are the first of the level five and six ED’s receiving fresh cohorts, which the government expects to reach safe staffing levels by July.

The first phase of the rollout, from March 1 to July 31, would see a one-to-one nursing care ratio for generally occupied ED resuscitation beds on all shifts, and one nurse to three generally occupied ED treatment spaces and short-stay units.

Liverpool Hospital, in Sydney’s southwest. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The reforms come as members of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association earlier in February voted in favour for the proposals, understood to be with about 80 per cent support of members, and follows a decade of campaigning by the organisation to secure the commitment as an election pledge.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the staffing push would ensure the state’s hospitals had the frontline work it needed to “deliver safe, high-quality care”.

“We listened to the nurses, midwives, patients and other stakeholders who have told us of the need for these changes and have acted to ensure we have a health system that delivers the best care possible for all of NSW,” the minister said.

“This important reform will deliver improved experiences and outcomes of care for patients while backing essential frontline workers in all corners of the state.

“It will help retain our existing staff while also helping attract our future workforce. When we boost and support our health workforce, we will see improved health outcomes.”

It’s understood that within three years NSW would have a nursing staff ratio comparable to the Victorian health department, which has taken about 20 years to evolve.

The scale of the reforms, and how it would affect staffing-to-patient ratios, has been welcomed by NSWNMA general secretary Shaye Candish who called it “momentous”.

NSWNMA general secretary Shaye Candish. Picture: Tim Hunter.

In Victoria, resuscitation staffing ratios during a morning shift in an ED is one-to-three (this would become one-to-one in NSW) while there are no legislated ICU rations.

In Queensland, specialty areas including ED, ICU and maternity do not yet have ratios.

“Our union has been campaigning for ratios in public hospitals for more than a decade, we are now seeing the beginning of their introduction, which will provide much needed workload relief for our devoted nurses and midwives,” Ms Candish said, calling it a “great first step” but with “more to do”.

“We have lost far too many experienced nurses and midwives, because NSW is the last mainland state to commit to nurse-to-patient ratios and their pay continues to fall behind their interstate counterparts.”

NSWNMA assistant general secretary Michael Whaites said it was a foundation to build on.

“We’re confident these reforms will finally help to end years of chronic staff shortages, fatigue and burnout in our nursing and midwifery workforce,” he said.

It follows the government announcing in February the establishment of an Emergency Department Taskforce, which would example how to reshape models of care in the state health system.

The announcements comes after extensive technical work from the Safe Staffing Implementation Working Group, established to plan the rollout, made up of government health officials and frontline staff.

Further phases will see safe staffing levels rolled out to general inpatient wards, smaller EDs, palliative care, ICUs, maternity wards and critical care units