merrion street

The Minister for Health, Simon Harris today (Thursday) visited Beaumont Hospital, one of three hospitals currently implementing the Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill Mix, led by the Chief Nursing Officer in the Department of Health, Dr Siobhan O’ Halloran.

The Framework, launched in February 2016, sets out a radical new approach to determining nurse staffing levels in hospitals, designed to put patient needs first and focus on delivering positive patient outcomes. The Framework is equally focused on creating a healthier and more attractive work environment for staff by stabilising the nursing resource and providing for more equitable workloads, a critical factor in recruiting and retaining this vital resource.

The results of the pilot clearly demonstrate the achievement of positive patient outcomes along with a healthier and more attractive work environment.

Acknowledging the tremendous work by staff and senior management at Beaumont Hospital and indeed across the three pilot hospitals, the Minister said,

‘The progress in achieving the core objectives of better patient outcomes and a healthier and more attractive work environment for staff is quite evident when we look at the results here in Beaumont. The results indicate that the occurrence of adverse nurse sensitive patient outcomes is not only decreasing but continues to further decrease as the pilot progresses. As these adverse nurse sensitive outcomes decrease, this will have a positive impact on length of stay, which will make a substantial difference in meeting the challenge of access into our acute hospitals. Equally, the substantial and sustained reduction in agency hours. This is important to ensuring a stable workforce, the impact of which is evident in the reduced intention to leave rates and higher job satisfaction rates by nurses in these areas. This is critical at a time when we are focused on the recruitment and retention of this vital resource across our services.

“I want to sincerely acknowledge that the success of this pilot is in no small part due to the hard work, commitment and positive engagement of the staff in the pilot hospitals and to especially thank the staff of Beaumont hospital here today.”