Majority of nurses and midwives fear for patients’ safety due to lack of staff, INMO conference hears

Over three quarters of members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said staffing levels and skill mix did not meet required clinical and patient demands.

Of these, 92pc expressed concern that patient safety is at risk.

The union’s new 2024 Work and Wellbeing survey, published today on the first day of the union’s annual delegate conference in Dublin, also reveals that significant numbers have considered leaving their jobs due to high levels of stress.

“These results very clearly show that nurses and midwives are struggling in today’s health service,” said INMO president Karen McGowan.

More than four years on from the start of the Covid pandemic, the union’s members are still dealing with the effects in their workplaces, in their practice, and in their own health, she said.

She said the government has failed to make progress on hospital overcrowding, and conditions for staff and patients in many places has become far worse than could have been imagined.

“Not only is this situation not sustainable, but it is painfully clear from these survey results that the Irish health service and its staff are not in a position to ensure another crisis,” she said.

"These services and the people working in them, are hanging by a thread, and it’s frightening to think what would happen if they had to withstand another serious shock.”

More than half of those surveyed feel under pressure to work extra hours or shifts and 15pc work more than 20 additional unpaid hours a month.

A total of 63pc said they have considered leaving their work area over the last month, and of those 44pc said this was mainly due to workplace stress.

More than one in five nurses and midwives said they had attended their GP due to work-related stress and one in eight said they had or previously had Long Covid.

INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said every year the union’s members fulfil their duty with regard to their patients and the services they provide, by raising the pressing issues that need to be addressed, and demonstrating the impact of inaction on their services and their patients.

“Year after year, they find that they are not being met halfway,” she said.

“We have clear data on the impact of unsafe staffing on patient outcomes; we have data on the relationship between overcrowding and whether or not patients will survive; and here we have clear figures saying nurses and midwives are extremely stressed, working unpaid hours, and leaving their jobs. The failure to act on very clear data is simply irresponsible.”

She said INMO members cannot increase bed capacity or staffing quotas.

“They have reached the end of what they themselves can do to improve the services, and it is up to the government and the HSE to bring about these changes, or risk a collapse in the numbers of staff who are willing to work in Ireland, and catastrophic patient outcomes as a result. “