NMBI’s State of the Register 2022: Informing future workforce planning models

Sheila McClelland, CEO of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI) talks about its new data report, the State of the Register 2022, which provides information for policymakers and the public to inform workforce planning models, and the overall direction of the organisation in the coming years.

As the regulator for more than 80,000 nurses and midwives in Ireland, NMBI’s mission is to protect the public and the integrity of the professions through the promotion of high standards of education, training, and professional conduct.

Our role is to help nurses and midwives make the right decisions for people using health and social care services through our statutory obligations. These are maintaining a Register of Nurses and Midwives; setting standards for education bodies for nursing and midwifery courses; setting professional standards for nurses and midwives; and considering complaints against nurses and midwives who practise in Ireland.

State of the Register 2022

The Irish healthcare landscape is changing with the rollout of Sláintecare and demographic trends showing an ageing population. These developments mean that we will need more nurses and midwives than ever before working in the Irish health sector. In NMBI, we need to be prepared for the changes and we need to be agile in our response to them. It is important that we plan for the future healthcare workforce through evidence-based data. It is also vitally important that data is available to workforce planners, policymakers and stakeholders across the sector as they respond to changing needs.

When we set out on our digitisation journey as part of a wider government initiative a number of years ago, we did so with the dual aims of making the annual renewal process easier for our registrants and collecting a data set which would assist in future planning for our health services.

Thanks to the digitisation of our annual renewal process and the engagement of our registrants, we can now provide valuable insights into the nurses and midwives registered in Ireland for the first time.

Last October, we published the State of the Register 2022, providing a breakdown of the number of nurses and midwives registered in Ireland, what division they are in, their age and gender, and where they are located across the country.

What the data shows

We can see that the number of practising nurses and midwives in the country is increasing. This is driven by the increase in undergraduate numbers and ongoing overseas recruitment of nurses and midwives to work in Ireland.

As of 1 June 2022, there are 81,431 nurses and midwives on the NMBI Register, with 75,871 self-declared as currently practising; and of these, 66,471 state they are patient-facing in their role.

The report also reveals that more than 90 per cent (68,310) of all nurses and midwives registered in Ireland are women, while the majority of new registrants in the past year came from overseas, outside the EU.

The 12 months from 1 June 2021 to 31 May 2022 saw a total of 4,937 applicants joining the register, with 1,555 of these qualified in Ireland, 3,021 from outside of the EU and 361 from EU countries.

The top overseas countries for new registrants were India (2,364), Philippines (391), United Kingdom (250) and Zimbabwe (132).

The report also provides a breakdown of registrants across practice areas:

• General nursing continues to be the most common area of practice, with 54,797 active nurses working in this area.
• The second highest number of nurses practising are psychiatric nurses (7,377).
• There are 3,999 practising intellectual disability nurses and 3,371 practising children’s nurses.
• In the midwives division, there are 9,661 on the Register with 4,561 of these practising and 3,850 in patient-facing roles. However, it is important to note that many of those registered as midwives are also registered and working in nursing divisions of the register. Furthermore, the number of practising midwives increased in the past year.

The full report on our registration figures and statistics is available on www.nmbi.ie.

Our Statement of Strategy 2023-2025

Following an extensive public consultation last year, we gained valuable insights, suggestions, and practical steps that we can take to improve our focus, efficiency and effectiveness. Thanks to the input from registrants, the public, staff organisations, employers, managers, people using services, advocate groups and other key stakeholders, we have developed our Statement of Strategy 2023-2025.

Our aim is to enhance NMBI’s function as a regulator for nurses and midwives in Ireland and our new strategy sets a clear direction for our organisation over the next three years. We will continue to focus on increased engagement with our registrants, the public and our key stakeholders. Together with the data we now have from the State of the Register, we can develop our education and regulation initiatives. We also look forward to reporting on any changes in the demographics of registrants year-on-year. Our 2023-2025 strategy will be published on www.nmbi.ie in due course.

T: 0818 200 116
E: communications@NMBI.ie
W: www.nmbi.ie