Donnelly announces €25m for more than 850 new nursing posts

Health minister Stephen Donnelly has announced €25m in funding for 854 additional nursing posts across HSE hospitals. Picture: iStock

Health minister Stephen Donnelly has announced €25m in funding for 854 additional nursing posts across HSE hospitals.

He said this will help the health services fully implement the Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skillmix by giving all hospitals support to recruit an appropriate balance of staff.

“2020, 2021 and 2022 have seen the biggest staff increases since the HSE was established, and we want to do more,” Mr Donnelly said.

“We have been implementing the Framework for Safe Staffing since 2020. We started in our bigger hospitals and are now seeing the benefits. We will now move to implement this policy in all acute hospitals this year.”

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly. Picture: PA

The Department of Health said there are 20,000 more staff working in our health service since the beginning of the pandemic, including 6,200 (net) additional nurses and midwives.

HSE CEO Bernard Gloster welcomed the funding, saying it will provide “significant improvement” for patients.

“This is a very significant development and gives us the opportunity now to implement the Framework for Safe Staffing across all our hospitals,” he said. 

“I am determined that within the HSE we will now work together to achieve both the letter and spirit of this Framework.” 

He added that all nursing and midwifery graduates are offered permanent contracts with the HSE.