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The Southern District Health Board has pledged to boost nursing numbers to meet safety requirements, but is not confident of being able to hire the nurses it needs to fulfil that promise.
A board meeting yesterday had a wide-ranging discussion on nursing numbers, in response to an independent consultant’s report which found it was placing patients at risk of harm due to a shortage of nurses on its wards.
Consultant Jane Lawless examined three wards, one in Dunedin and two at Southland Hospital, and reported that there were too many instances of a poor match between service demand and nursing resources.
SDHB chief nursing and midwifery officer Jane Wilson said Ms Lawless’ findings were not new, and that southern hospitals had run under-resourced shifts in several wards for a protracted time.
‘‘We don’t have enough nurses in our pool and those who are in pool are working extra shifts, and over a length of time that affects wellbeing and high staff turnover rates.
‘‘We have got more patients we are seeing who are confused and vulnerable and need someone right beside them, more healthcare assistants are needed to provide that one-on-one care to prevent harm.’’
SDHB corporate services executive director Nigel Trainor said that next year’s budget had accounted for extra nurses to be hired.
‘‘That should show a dividend once those people start but the problem is finding the nurses, which is complex in itself because the borders are closed.’’
Chief executive Chris Fleming said all DHBs were having the same issues recruiting nursing staff and all had to meet the requirements of the care capacity demand management (CCDM) programme, a nationally agreed safe-staffing regime.
‘‘We are also in a very difficult industrial time at the moment, there is another nurses strike coming up, and fundamentally the biggest problem facing settlement right now is the nurse’s confidence that we can achieve CCDM .’’
The SDHB has hired about 50 more nurses in recent months but it has also had several resignations in that time.
Nursing staffing levels were about 2.5% up but several more needed to be hired to meet targets, the board was told.
Ms Wilson said a year ago the SDHB was ahead of most boards in complying with CCDM, but was now about the middle of the pack.