The safety-net we forget: where is nursing in patient safety?

Nursing is central to patient safety, quality of care and the sustainability of health systems, yet its contribution is frequently undervalued in policy and practice).

This seminar will present an overview of the existing international and UK evidence on the association between safe nurse staffing and patient and staff outcomes, including mortality, failure‑to‑rescue and quality of care.

It will examine how inadequate staffing is linked to missed care, preventable harm, staff burnout and attrition, contributing to the widening workforce crisis across health and care systems.

Attention will be paid to the gendered nature of the nursing workforce, with women comprising nearly nine in ten registrants in the UK, and how structural inequities, misrecognition and limited professional agency shape decision‑making about safety and workforce investment.

Positioning nursing as a critical yet often invisible ‘safety net’, this session demonstrates that patient safety cannot be meaningfully addressed without nursing workforce evidence at its core.

Speaker: Dr Kate Kirk, Associate Director of Nursing Workforce Academy, Royal College of Nursing and Prof Amanda Adegboye, Head of Workforce Research, Royal College of Nursing

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