Join us for our upcoming SafetyNet webinar – The safety-net we forget: where is nursing in patient safety?

Date: 13 May 2026
Time: 12:30 – 1:30pm
Where: Online (Zoom)

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 (WHO, 2025; RCN, 2025).

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 (Aiken et al., 2014; Griffiths et al., 2018).

We 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 (Griffiths et al., 2018; WHO, 2025).

Attention will be paid to the gendered nature of the nursing workforce, with women comprising nearly nine in ten registrants in the UK (NMC, 2025), and how structural inequities, misrecognition and limited professional agency shape decision‑making about safety and workforce investment (WHO, 2025).

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.

Meet the speakers

Dr Kate Kirk
Clinical Academic Nurse 

Kate is a Clinical Academic Nurse with an MSc in Research Methods and PhD in Healthcare Management. She is a Registered Nurse with a BSc (Hons) in Nursing and has a clinical background in emergency and trauma care. Kate has expertise in the work lives and wellbeing of the healthcare workforce, with a particular interest in the experiences and contribution of nursing. Throughout the last 20 years, Kate has worked across practice, research and policy to establish wellbeing as a mechanism for improving staff and patient experience, care quality and rganizational efficiency. Kate is driven to empower nurses through research and evidence, informing and implementing conditions which enable them to thrive.

Prof Amanda Adegboye
Professor of Public Health

Amanda is a Professor of Public Health with an MSc and PhD in Epidemiology and a PgDip in Business Administration. She brings over 20 years of experience in health research, teaching and consultancy, underpinned by a strong portfolio of practice-based research and more than 100 publications. Her work focuses on evidence-based, equitable and sustainable interventions, co-designed solutions, workforce development and service evaluation. Amanda is passionate about using research to inform policy and practice, creating conditions for a diverse and inclusive healthcare workforce that is empowered to deliver high-quality, safe and effective care.

Prof Jane Ball
Director of the RCN Institute of Nursing Excellence

Jane is director of the RCN Institute of Nursing Excellence. Over the past 30 plus years her research has focused on nursing employment and deployment, looking at how features of nurse staffing affect care quality, patient outcomes and nurses themselves. The unifying aim of the work has been to identify conditions needed to allow nurses to deliver excellent care and have satisfying and sustainable careers.

Sources:

Aiken LH, Sloane DM, Bruyneel L, et al., (2014). Nurse staffing and education and hospital mortality in nine European countries: a retrospective observational study. The Lancet, 383(9931), pp.1824–1830. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62631-8

Griffiths P, Recio‑Saucedo A, Dall’Ora C, et al., (2018). The association between nurse staffing and omissions in nursing care: a systematic review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 74(7), pp.1474–1487. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13564

NMC. (2025). The NMC  register UK mid-year  update. Nursing & Midwifery Council. https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/data-reports/september-2025/data-report-uk-web.pdf

RCN (2025). Safe staffing: Evaluating the evidence for mandatory nurse‑to‑patient ratios. London: Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Nursing Workforce Academy. Available at:  Safe Staffing | Publications | Royal College of Nursing

WHO (2025). State of the world’s nursing 2025: investing in education, jobs, leadership and service delivery. Geneva: WHO. Available at: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240110236

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