Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 25 July 2023
1257. Deputy Carol Nolan asked the Minister for Health if he will take steps to support a funded workforce plan to immediately grow the nursing and midwifery staff by 2,000 whole-time equivalent staff annually for the next three years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36340/23]
View answerMy Department is currently developing a Health and Social Care Workforce Strategy and Action Plan and Planning Projection Model. The Model will provide demand and supply projections of numbers required in medicine, nursing and HSCPs spanning short- (3-5 years), medium- (5-10 years) and long-term (18-20 year) time horizons. Work on the demand and supply projections and gap analysis is due to be completed in September 2023. The expected result and ultimate objective of this work is the development of scenario-based projections of health and social care workforce supply and demand which informs a strategy, action plan and set of recommendations for ongoing strategic health and social care workforce planning.
Specifically relating to the nursing workforce, the Deputy will be aware that the Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill Mix is an evidence-based approach to determine safe staffing and skill mix that has been policy since 2018 and is fully supported by Government and being implemented by the HSE. It is determined by patient need and demonstrates impact through the measurement of a range of outcomes.
Since 2018, two safe staffing policy documents have been published. Phase 1 focused on Adult General and Specialist Medical and Surgical Care Settings. Phase 2 focused on Adult Emergency Care Settings.
The Framework methodology uses new/additional posts along with conversion of agency to permanent posts to achieve the required workforce stability. Nursing posts are a combination of Registered Nurses (RN) and Health Care Assistants (HCA), and this combination refers to the skill mix.
The Government had already invested €31 million since 2020 to support implementation of the Framework. The HSE have reported, as of May 2023, that investment to date has provided about 2,000 nursing posts (RN and HCA) which comprise both new and agency conversion posts to improve workforce stability. I recently allocated funding of €25 million to continue to implement the Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill Mix in all acute hospitals nationally based on the HSE’s implementation plan. Recruitment is ongoing to fill all posts across all acute hospitals, including for emergency departments.
The HSE is in the process of finalising any outstanding implementation requirements through the 2024 Estimates process.
In relation to future nursing workforce demand, the Framework policy provides direction for the ongoing review and monitoring of nurse staffing and skill mix by senior hospital management teams and/or hospital groups at regular intervals within acute care settings.
My Department are currently progressing ongoing development of the Framework in community care settings including Long Term Residential care settings.
In addition, Ireland’s first National Maternity Strategy Creating a Better Future Together 2026-2026 (Department of Health, 2016), recognised the need to build capacity in the midwifery workforce, not only in terms of numbers, but also in relation to capability to deliver the new model of service across the home, the community and the hospital settings. In that context the Strategy specifically highlights the utility of workforce planning systems, such as BirthRate Plus.
Recommendation 6 from the Report of the Expert Review Body on Nursing and Midwifery (Department of Health, 2022) supports the workforce planning approach in the National Maternity Strategy by recommending that the HSE continue to advance the implementation of the BirthRate Plus approach as a model to determine the clinical midwifery staffing levels across all appropriate maternity units.
The Framework for Midwifery Workforce Planning is currently being advanced through the National Women and Infants Health Programme (NWIHP) in the HSE; licensing for use of the Model is being finalised and baseline data collection is currently in progress.
