One-fifth of University Hospital Limerick's nursing roles unfilled

University Hospital Limerick. Lat year it emerged the hospital had lower numbers of full-time nursing staff than comparably sized Dublin hospitals.

University Hospital Limerick has a vacancy rate of 20% among nursing staff with one in five roles unfilled. The staffing shortage means the hospital is forced to rely on agency staff and overtime to fill the gaps.

The news follows findings by health watchdog Hiqa last week showing in the emergency department (ED) 27.52% of nursing roles were unfilled, a shortage equivalent to 34.72 full-time nurses.

The scale of the challenge was seen last year when it emerged the hospital had lower numbers of full-time nursing staff than comparably sized Dublin hospitals, through a review conducted by Deloitte.

This was despite the equivalent of 361.29 nurses hired during 2021 across the hospital group. The review found “These staffing deficits are largely a result of a lack of approved and funded posts rather than a recruitment issue.”

 A UHL spokesman said: “There is currently a vacancy rate of approximately 20% among nursing staff at University Hospital Limerick.

“Of these, 13% are permanent deficits and 7% are temporary. Agency and overtime are used to fill gaps and ensure continuity of patient care.” 

He said the national Safer Staffing in nursing initiative is completed across 13 inpatient wards and the Acute Medical Unit.

This is now being worked on in the ED, and will be put in place in the smaller local hospitals Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s.

“As set out in the Hiqa Report, the ceiling of funded posts in our ED has been raised due to the Safer Staffing initiative,” he said.

“This is not unique to UHL and vacancy rates in our ED will reduce in the coming weeks as the extra staff to implement Safer Staffing take up post.” UHL has been given additional approved funding for the equivalent of 21.5 new nursing posts in the ED, and he said they expect these to be “filled in the coming weeks”.

Recruitment is also on-going for Advanced Nurse Practitioners to work in the ED.

Among the 37 nurses expected to be hired are graduates from the University of Limerick and international nurses, he said.

“Staff continue to be redeployed to ED on a daily basis to ensure suitable qualified staff are in place,” “ he said.

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The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) have previously called for these vacancies to be filled, and said these latest figures reflect their concerns.

“The fact that there is a 20% nursing vacancy in one of Ireland’s busiest hospitals is very concerning,” a spokeswoman said.

“The INMO is aware of similar and indeed higher nursing vacancies in emergency departments across the country. This makes the case for safe nurse staffing underpinned by legislation even more pertinent.” 

 The union highlighted delays in hiring new staff for all hospitals, and urged that “directors of nursing must be given the opportunity to take a lead on recruitment to ensure that posts are filled quickly in order for the vacancy gap to be shortened.” 

 HSE CEO Bernard Gloster said in May that safe staffing plans nationally “will bring an additional 660 nursing posts into the service as soon as we recruit them".