Sustaining Nursing in Canada: a set of coordinated evidence-based solutions targeted to support the nursing workforce now and into the future

Sustaining Nursing in Canada proposes a set of concrete actionable solutions to help meaningfully solve the health care staffing crisis.

The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions worked with the Canadian Health Workforce Network to present in this report the magnitude of the nursing crisis and the known solutions to address it.

Authored by University of Ottawa researchers Dr. Houssem Eddine Ben Ahmed and Dr. Ivy Lynn Bourgeault, the report focuses on multi-layered solutions to improve health care working conditions and health workforce planning to better weather future crises.

Sustaining Nursing in Canada details how governments’ poor planning and failure to address the systemic challenges facing nurses created today’s crisis and the impact on nurses, patients and the health system.

Nurses are at the heart of the solutions recommended in this report:

• Retaining experienced nurses to ensure the highest quality of care
• Returning nurses who have left to bolster an ailing workforce
• Recruiting and training the nurses of tomorrow to meet future needs

Further, the report recommends the collection and effective use of data to provide a roadmap to avoid recurring and drastic nursing shortages.

Download the full report here.