Te Whatu Ora is refusing to address calls to prioritise patient safety by adequately resourcing safe staffing levels, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōputanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) says.

A new offer from Te Whatu Ora to NZNO members has failed to include measures to address staffing concerns despite it being raised continually throughout the bargaining process.

NZNO Chief Executive Paul Goulter says an earlier offer from Te Whatu Ora committed to acting on safe staffing research the two organisations had agreed to do together.

"Te Whatu Ora has removed that from their latest offer without explanation. This demonstrates their focus is on cost cutting, not patient safety.

"A survey of our members shows nurses have grave concerns that continued understaffing is putting their patients at risk. Overworked staff are unable to give patients the care they need and leads to staff burnout," Paul Goulter says.

Despite claiming there is no nursing shortage, Te Whatu Ora continues to understaff shifts. NZNO has received staffing figures under the Official Information Act for 631 wards using the safe staffing Care Capacity Demand Management programme (CCDM).

"These figures show from January to October last year almost half (or 47.1%) of all wards were understaffed 20% of the time. That means nurses and health care assistants are working in understaffed wards at least one shift a week," Paul Goulter says.

"We are also continuing to see acute levels of understaffing in emergency departments, mental health, women's health and children's wards."

Paul Goulter says Te Whatu Ora Acting Chief Executive Robyn Shearer claimed this morning that clinical need "isn’t an easy thing" to resolve through collective bargaining.

"It is concerning that Robyn Shearer isn’t aware CCDM has been in the Te Whatu Ora/NZNO collective agreement since 2010," he says.