More than 200 nurses and midwives at John Hunter Hospital voted almost unanimously in favour of applying industrial bans across the facility unless Hunter New England Health immediately implements safe nursing staff numbers.

Members of the NSWNMA John Hunter branch held a secret ballot after discussing the amount of time they were required to spend away from patients on their ward or unit, to complete follow-up discharge phone calls.

The branch voted to implement a ban on follow-up discharge phone calls within three days unless Hunter New England Local Health District immediately introduced safe staffing measures.

“All nursing classifications will no longer continue to make follow- up discharge phone calls, as this is severely impacting on the time available to care for our current hospitalised patients,” the branch resolution said.

“The follow-up phone call policy cannot be reinstated until such time as there are confirmed, agreed, and implemented safe nurse staffing numbers, with the minimum nursing hours per patient day plus the additional staffing required to meet patient acuity and safe nursing skill mix needs.”

Branch secretary Suzanne McNeill said the decision to take industrial action was the result of a “wide and deeply felt” view that management had not done enough to resolve staffing issues.

She said while follow-up phone calls for discharged patients were an important and valuable measure, current staffing arrangements meant the calls were reducing the already-limited time available to care for hospitalised patients.

Need for immediate improvements

NSWNMA General Secretary Brett Holmes said Hunter New England LHD had proposed several longer-term recruitment measures but “no immediate improvements were evident for nursing staff on the floor”.

“We’ve already uncovered thousands of hours of nursing care missing at John Hunter as a result of Hunter New England LHD deliberately breaching the award by not rostering and recruiting the necessary staff,” he said.

“We are talking to Hunter New England LHD, but our members are disappointed that the measures they’ve proposed all have a long-term focus.

“There have been no immediate changes implemented, so nurses and midwives across a number of wards and units are still working short-staffed or required to work overtime.

“Our members are not suggesting that follow-up phone calls for discharged patients are not important in the Hunter. They are simply asking hospital management to allocate the calls to other clinicians and allied health staff, given the current understaffing of nurses and midwives.

“Nurses and midwives should not be directed to complete follow-up discharge phone calls within the nursing hours that are required per patient per day under the award.”

Elizabeth Grist, the LHD’s executive director of clinical services, nursing and midwifery, told The Newcastle Herald that John Hunter Hospital and the LHD would ensure that follow-up phone calls were made by allied health and medical staff and “any nurses and midwives who do not have a direct patient load”.

“I want to reassure our nurses and midwives that we are listening, and we definitely do not want them to have any more of a workload or stress in any way.

“In the wards, if they feel they are not fully staffed… if there is any occasion they are not able to make those phone calls, we’re going to make sure it is not the nurses or the midwives who make the calls.”