Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Recruitment of nurses and midwives continues in line with the Government’s commitment to increasing the nursing and midwifery workforce. There are 6,568 more nurses and midwives in the workforce since 2020. Based on available evidence provided by the OECD, figures show that Ireland has the fourth highest number of practising nurses per capita in Europe with 13.4 practising nurses per 1,000 population. This is an increase on the 2021 figure of 12.8.

In addition to recruitment, I am committed to growing the national supply of nurses and midwives in Ireland. I am working with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research Innovation and Science with the intention of doubling nursing and midwifery training places over the next 5-8 years. Over the last three years, undergraduate training places for nurses and midwives have increased by over 400 places (approximately 25%). For 2023/2024, there are over 250 additional places across the Republic of Ireland Higher Education Institutions. Adding to this number for this year, my Department and the Department of Health in Northern Ireland have agreed a one-off arrangement supporting an All-Island approach to increasing training places for student nurses and midwives.

Retention of our current nursing and midwifery students is a priority for me and the Deputy will be aware that I recently invested €9 million to support student nurses and midwives to attend their mandatory clinical practice placements throughout their education programme.

The Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill Mix is an evidence-based approach to determining nurse staffing levels that puts safety and patient needs first, focusing on delivering positive patient outcomes. The Framework is national policy in Adult General and Specialist Medical and Surgical wards since 2018 and in Emergency Care Settings since 2022. Where implemented, the Framework, has demonstrated positive impacts for patients, staff, and organisations.Specifically, evidence is available from the Framework for Safe Staffing of positive impacts on retention of nurses including a reduction in intention to leave.

National implementation of the Framework is a priority for me.The Government invested €56 million since 2020 to support implementation. This provides for over 2,000 additional Whole Time Equivalent Registered Nurses and Healthcare Assistants to date and will continue to drive recruitment in line with increasing demands.

Clinical nurse and midwife specialist posts and advanced practice posts offer career pathways supporting retention of our workforce, while optimising the nursing and midwifery contribution to meeting population health needs. In November 2021, I increased the target for the number of nurses and midwives practicing at advanced level from 2% of the nursing and midwifery workforce to 3% and I allocated additional funding of €11 million to support this. With this funding, 149 additional WTE Advanced Nurse/ Midwifery Practitioners (ANMP) were recruited in 2022. Budget 2023 has provided funding to recruit an additional 80 WTE ANMPs during 2023 and as of August 2023, the total number of both registered and candidate advanced nursing and midwifery practitioners ANMPs was 1,004 WTE.

My Department is currently developing a Health and Social Care Workforce Projection Model. The Model will provide demand and supply projections of numbers required in medicine, nursing and health and social care professionals (HSCP). Work on developing demand and supply projections and gap analysis is currently underway and due to be completed later this year. The ultimate objective of this work is the development of scenario-based projections of health and social care workforce supply and demand which informs a set of recommendations for ongoing strategic health and social care workforce planning.

Increased recruitment and retention strategies by the HSE have contributed to record-breaking growth in the healthcare workforce with significant career development and progression and educational/development opportunities being offered.

The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), in their role as statutory regulator, monitor standards across the public health service against the National Standards forSafer Better Healthcare to help drive improvements in the quality and safety of healthcare services in Ireland. One of the eight themes in the National Standards forSafer Better Healthcare is Workforce. HIQA recognises that a service’s workforce is one of its most important resources in delivering safe, high-quality care and support.

The National Standards forSafer Better Healthcare state that it is important that the members of the workforce are skilled and competent to deliver quality care and support and that the workforce is planned, structured, and managed to deliver the service’s quality and safety outcomes. One of the key standards that HIQA inspect against is that service providers organise and manage their workforce to achieve the service objectives for high quality, safe and reliable healthcare. This is to ensure service providers plan and organise their services to ensure there are enough staff with the necessary qualifications, skills, and experience to deliver safe high-quality care to service users at all times.

With regard to the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), my Department is not aware of any specific interactions between the HSE and HSA related to this matter. The HSA is under the remit of the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and as such, the Deputy may wish to raise those elements of his question directly with Minister Coveney.