The Southern District Health Board (SDHB) is putting patients at risk due to a shortage of nurses on hospital wards, say Invercargill MP Penny Simmonds. 

The SDHB commissioned an independent review of its staffing levels at both Southland and Otago hospitals. 

It has a programme which calculates the number of nurses needed, based on the needs of the patients in their care. But it regularly staffed shifts with fewer nurses than needed, the report found.

One ward in Dunedin Hospital was understaffed by at least 20 percent during day shifts between July 2018 and October 2020. 

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Consultant Jane Lawless is recommending changes to the way the SDHB staffs wards, which she labels unjustifiable. They will be discussed at an SDHB meeting today.  

Simmonds says "Patient safety is being compromised and it is a huge concern.

"Hospital patients are vulnerable and rely on staff for support - to have inadequate nursing numbers on a ward is both unacceptable and worrying.

"It's also unfair to put the nurses themselves under this pressure, especially with the risk of errors increasing as staff are stressed and overworked. 

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"The SDHB needs to make addressing these nursing shortages a priority - to leave the issue is to sacrifice safety and put lives at risk." 

The SDHB meeting will also consider changes to how its executive team operates, after another independent report found it needs more accountability.

Lawless told RNZ all patients were exposed to risk when shifts were understaffed.

And shortages meant nurses had to decide which tasks would be sacrificed or prioritised, rationing their care.

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"A person who needs assistance to mobilise may not get helped to do that during the shift. So the consequences don't seem very immediate.

"But that person may not make a full recovery because that was actually a really important thing to happen. It's things like the prompt attention to dealing with someone's noxious symptoms like their pain or their anxiety," Lawless told RNZ.

Lawless, in her report, says the issues are "not likely to be unique to the Southern DHB and some are beyond the control of the DHB to resolve internally". 

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The principal recommendation from the review is that the DHB prioritises treating the elimination of below target shift staffing as a central goal because of the association with patient risk and harm.

Many Southern District nurses, including those at Southland Hospital, joined a national strike in June over pay and conditions. And another is planned for August 19 after negotiations broke down between the Nurses Organisation union and district health boards.