The Global Nursing Shortage Explained: Causes, Consequences and What Would Fix It

Nurses make up the largest share of the global health workforce, around half or more of all health workers. Yet almost every country reports difficulties recruiting and keeping enough nurses. The World Health Organization’s State of the World’s Nursing reports estimate the global stock of nurses at roughly 29 million and a global shortage measured in millions, with the gap falling hardest on low- and lower-middle-income countries, particularly in Africa, South-East Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. While the global shortage is projected to narrow slightly by 2030, inequalities between countries are expected to widen.

The nursing shortage is not simply about not having enough nurses in total. It is about where nurses are, whether they are employed, whether they stay, whether they can work to the full extent of their education, and whether working conditions allow them to provide safe care. This complete guide explains how the shortage is measured, its main causes, its consequences for patients, nurses and health systems, the role of international migration, and the evidence on what actually works to fix it.

How big is the nursing shortage?

Measuring a shortage is more complicated than it sounds. Different approaches include:

• Needs-based estimates: how many nurses are needed to achieve health goals such as universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals, based on population health needs.
• Demand-based estimates: how many nurses health systems can afford to employ.
• Vacancy rates: unfilled funded posts in health organisations.
• Density: the number of nurses per 10,000 population, which varies more than tenfold between regions.

These measures can tell different stories. In some low-income countries, the needs-based shortage is huge, but there are also unemployed nurses because governments cannot afford to hire them. In some high-income countries, nurse numbers per head are high, yet vacancy rates remain high because demand is growing faster than supply, and many nurses leave or reduce their hours.

The WHO’s reports show that nurse density in high-income countries is many times higher than in low-income countries. Africa carries a large share of the global burden of disease but has a very small share of the global health workforce. Over the coming years, population growth, ageing and rising rates of chronic disease will increase the need for nurses everywhere.

For a deeper look at the latest WHO findings, see our analysis of State of the World’s Nursing 2025.

Why is there a nursing shortage?

There is no single cause. The shortage results from a combination of factors affecting the supply of nurses (how many are educated, enter the workforce and stay) and the demand for nursing care.

Rising demand

• Ageing populations: older people are more likely to have multiple long-term conditions and need more nursing care. Many countries are ageing rapidly.
• Chronic diseases: diabetes, heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease and dementia are increasing worldwide.
• Population growth in many low- and middle-income countries.
• Expanding health coverage: as countries move towards universal health coverage, more people can access services, increasing demand for nurses.
• More complex care: advances in medicine mean patients survive longer with more complex needs, requiring more skilled nursing.
• Emergencies: pandemics, conflicts, climate-related disasters and disease outbreaks create surges in need.

Insufficient education capacity

• Not enough nursing school places, faculty, clinical placements and training funding.
• A shortage of nurse educators, who often earn less than clinical nurses and are themselves ageing.
• Limited clinical placement capacity, as overstretched services struggle to supervise students.
• Cost of education for students, especially where tuition fees are high or stipends are absent.

Under-investment and unemployment

Paradoxically, many countries with severe needs-based shortages also have unemployed or underemployed nurses. Public sector hiring freezes, budget constraints, economic policies limiting public wage bills, and poor workforce planning mean that newly qualified nurses cannot find posts. This drives migration and wastes investment in education.

Poor retention: nurses leaving

Many nurses leave the profession, move to other sectors, reduce their hours, or emigrate. Common reasons include:

• Heavy workloads and unsafe staffing, creating a vicious cycle where shortages increase pressure, pushing more nurses to leave.
• Burnout and poor mental health, intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Low pay relative to the responsibility, training and cost of living, and pay that has fallen in real terms in some countries.
• Poor working conditions: long shifts, inflexible rotas, lack of breaks, inadequate equipment.
• Violence and harassment from patients, families and sometimes colleagues.
• Lack of career progression and professional development.
• Poor leadership and feeling undervalued or unheard.
• Moral distress from being unable to provide the care patients need.
• Family responsibilities and lack of flexible working or childcare.

Early-career nurses are particularly at risk of leaving in their first few years, often citing a difficult transition from student to qualified nurse.

An ageing nursing workforce

In many countries, a significant proportion of nurses are approaching retirement age. Without enough new nurses entering the profession, retirements will widen the gap.

Gender and the undervaluing of care

Nursing is predominantly a women’s profession, and many analysts argue that its pay, status and working conditions reflect a wider undervaluing of care work traditionally done by women. Women nurses also bear a disproportionate share of unpaid caring responsibilities at home, which affects their working hours and careers.

Maldistribution

Even within countries, nurses are unevenly distributed. Urban areas, private hospitals and specialist centres often attract more nurses than rural areas, primary care, mental health, long-term care and community services. Nurses may be reluctant to work in remote areas because of isolation, poor infrastructure, limited schools for their children and lack of career opportunities.

The role of international migration

International migration of nurses has grown significantly. A substantial proportion of nurses working in some high-income countries, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and Gulf states, were educated abroad. Major source countries include the Philippines, India, Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Kenya and many others.

Benefits of migration

• Individual nurses gain higher income, career development, better working conditions and new experiences.
• Remittances sent home support families and national economies.
• Destination countries fill vacancies and benefit from nurses’ skills and diversity.
• Some nurses return with new skills and experience.

Costs and risks

• Source countries lose experienced nurses in whom they have invested, often from already fragile health systems, including specialist and senior nurses who are hardest to replace.
• Large-scale recruitment can worsen shortages in countries that can least afford them.
• Migrant nurses may face exploitation by unscrupulous agencies, debt bondage, discrimination, de-skilling and difficulties with registration.
• Over-reliance on international recruitment can allow destination countries to avoid investing in their own education and retention.

Ethical recruitment

The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel, adopted in 2010, encourages countries to train and retain their own health workers, to avoid active recruitment from countries with critical shortages, to ensure fair treatment of migrant health workers, and to support mutually beneficial arrangements. The WHO maintains a health workforce support and safeguards list of countries that should not be targeted for active international recruitment. Some destination countries have codes of practice for ethical recruitment and bilateral agreements with source countries. The International Council of Nurses has called for greater protection for source countries and for migrant nurses. Read more in our article on whether international nurse recruitment is ethical.

Nurses considering working abroad have every right to do so. Our guide to nursing abroad registration routes explains the options.

Consequences of the nursing shortage

For patients

A large body of international research shows that when nurses care for more patients, outcomes worsen. Studies across many countries have linked higher patient-to-nurse ratios with higher mortality, more complications such as pressure injuries, falls, infections and failure to rescue deteriorating patients, longer hospital stays and readmissions. “Missed care”, where essential nursing tasks such as observations, mouth care, mobilisation, emotional support and patient education are left undone, is common when staffing is inadequate. In regions with severe shortages, many people simply cannot access skilled care, contributing to preventable maternal, newborn and child deaths.

For nurses

Shortages create heavy workloads, stress, burnout, moral distress and injury, which drive more nurses to leave, deepening the shortage. Nurses report feeling unable to provide the standard of care they were trained to give.

For health systems and economies

Shortages lead to bed closures, cancelled operations, longer waiting times, overcrowded emergency departments and reliance on expensive temporary agency staff. They limit progress towards universal health coverage and leave systems less prepared for emergencies. Investing in nursing, on the other hand, has been linked by WHO and others to wider economic and social benefits, including women’s employment and economic growth.

What works: solutions to the nursing shortage

The WHO’s Global Strategic Directions for Nursing and Midwifery 2021-2025, the State of the World’s Nursing reports and the ICN have set out priorities. Solutions must address education, jobs, leadership and practice together.

1. Educate more nurses, and educate them well

• Expand nursing education capacity, including more faculty, clinical placements and simulation facilities.
• Invest in nurse educators through fair pay, development and career pathways.
• Reduce financial barriers for students through scholarships, stipends and loan forgiveness, especially for students from rural and under-represented communities.
• Align curricula with population health needs, including primary care, mental health, ageing and digital health.
• Recruit students from rural areas, who are more likely to work there after graduation.

2. Create jobs and employ the nurses already educated

• Fund nursing posts, particularly in primary care and rural areas.
• Use workforce planning to match education output with employment opportunities.
• Address fiscal constraints that prevent hiring, through advocacy with finance ministries and international partners.

3. Retain nurses: make nursing a job people want to stay in

Retention is often more cost-effective than recruitment. Evidence-based retention strategies include:

• Safe staffing: mandated or evidence-based nurse staffing levels, as introduced in some jurisdictions such as Victoria and Queensland in Australia, California in the United States, Wales and Scotland in the United Kingdom, and parts of Canada, have been associated with better patient outcomes and nurse retention.
• Fair pay that reflects responsibility and keeps pace with living costs.
• Flexible working options, including self-rostering and part-time roles.
• Supportive leadership and positive work environments, such as those promoted by Magnet and similar programmes.
• Career development, including clear pathways into advanced practice, specialist, education, research and leadership roles.
• Transition-to-practice support such as preceptorship and residency programmes for new graduates.
• Protection from violence and harassment.
• Wellbeing support, including mental health services, rest facilities and manageable shifts.
• Support for older nurses to continue working, through flexible roles and reduced physical demands.
• Rural retention incentives, such as allowances, housing, career advantages and professional support, which WHO guidelines recommend as a package.

4. Optimise roles and scope of practice

Enabling nurses to work to the full extent of their education, including through advanced practice roles such as nurse practitioners, improves access to care, especially in primary care and underserved areas. Removing unnecessary regulatory barriers and supporting team-based models make better use of existing nurses. Appropriate task-sharing with other health workers, with proper training and supervision, can also help, but should not be used to replace registered nurses where their skills are needed.

5. Strengthen nursing leadership

Having a government chief nursing officer, nurse leaders in senior policy roles and investment in leadership development ensures that nursing perspectives shape health workforce decisions. See our guide to nursing leadership.

6. Improve data and workforce planning

Many countries lack accurate data on how many nurses they have, where they work, and when they plan to leave. National health workforce accounts, supported by WHO, help countries plan education, recruitment and retention more effectively.

7. Manage migration ethically

Destination countries should invest in self-sufficiency, follow the WHO Code, avoid active recruitment from safeguard-list countries, and consider bilateral agreements that benefit source countries, such as investment in their nursing education. Source countries can strengthen retention, manage migration through agreements, and engage their diaspora.

8. Use technology wisely

Digital tools, such as better electronic records, remote monitoring and decision support, can reduce administrative burdens and extend nurses’ reach, but they cannot replace nurses. See our guide to AI in nursing.

What individual nurses can do

The shortage is a system problem that requires system solutions, but individual nurses can contribute:

• Report unsafe staffing through formal channels and document its impact.
• Support students and new graduates, as a positive first experience strongly influences whether nurses stay.
• Join professional associations and unions to amplify the profession’s voice.
• Take part in workforce consultations and policy discussions.
• Look after your own wellbeing and seek support early.
• Promote nursing as a career to young people, honestly describing both its challenges and rewards.

The shortage region by region

Africa

The WHO African Region faces the most severe needs-based nursing shortage in the world. Nurse densities in many countries are far below what is needed to deliver essential services, and rapid population growth means needs are rising quickly. At the same time, several African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Kenya, have seen large numbers of nurses migrate to the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia and the Gulf states in recent years. Many nurses who remain work in difficult conditions with low pay, delayed salaries and limited equipment. Some countries also have unemployed nursing graduates because public sector budgets do not allow hiring. Efforts to address the situation include expanding nursing education, bonding schemes that require graduates to serve locally for a period, improving rural incentives, and negotiating bilateral agreements with destination countries.

South-East Asia and the Western Pacific

This vast and diverse area includes countries with large shortages, such as some in South Asia, alongside major nurse-exporting countries such as the Philippines and India, and rapidly ageing high-income countries such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore. The Philippines has long educated nurses partly for international employment, generating significant remittances, but has also experienced domestic shortages, leading to periodic limits on deployment abroad. India has a large nursing workforce but faces maldistribution between states, urban and rural areas, and public and private sectors. Ageing societies in East Asia face rising demand for long-term care nursing and have increasingly opened pathways for foreign nurses and care workers.

Eastern Mediterranean

Countries in this region vary greatly. Gulf states rely heavily on internationally recruited nurses, with a large majority of their nursing workforce coming from abroad, and several are working to increase the number of national nurses. Other countries in the region face shortages linked to conflict, economic crisis and emigration, with health systems in crisis-affected countries such as Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Gaza severely damaged and many health workers killed, injured or displaced.

Europe

Many European countries report nursing vacancies and concerns about retention, ageing nurses and burnout. There are large differences between countries: some Western European countries have relatively high nurse densities but still struggle to fill posts, while several Central and Eastern European countries have lost many nurses to migration within the European Union, where qualifications are mutually recognised. Long-term care and mental health services are particularly affected.

The Americas

The United States and Canada have high nurse densities by global standards but face shortages in particular settings, specialties and regions, with burnout and early exits accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Both countries recruit internationally. Many Caribbean countries have lost large proportions of their nurses to migration, creating serious gaps. Countries in Latin America face uneven distribution, with fewer registered nurses relative to auxiliary nursing staff in some places.

Oceania

Australia and New Zealand recruit significant numbers of internationally educated nurses while investing in domestic education and, in Australian states such as Victoria and Queensland, nurse-to-patient ratios. Pacific Island nations face particular challenges with small workforces, geographic isolation and migration to larger neighbours.

Specialties and settings hit hardest

Shortages are rarely uniform. Areas commonly reporting the greatest difficulty include:

• Long-term care and aged care: often lower pay, heavy workloads and lower status than hospital nursing, despite the complexity of caring for frail older people.
• Mental health nursing: high demand, workplace violence risks and fewer students choosing the field.
• Community and primary care nursing: vital for universal health coverage and ageing populations, yet often under-resourced.
• Intensive care, emergency and theatre nursing: highly specialised roles that take years to develop, with high burnout after the pandemic.
• Midwifery: closely linked to nursing in many countries, with severe shortages contributing to preventable maternal and newborn deaths.
• Rural and remote nursing: difficult to recruit and retain in almost every country.
• Nursing education: shortages of nurse educators limit the ability to train new nurses.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath

The COVID-19 pandemic placed unprecedented pressure on nurses worldwide. Nurses worked long hours in frightening conditions, often without adequate protective equipment, and many became infected. The International Council of Nurses and others estimated that large numbers of nurses died from COVID-19, although incomplete reporting means the true number is unknown. Nurses experienced high rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress symptoms and moral injury from rationing care and seeing patients die alone.

In the years after the acute pandemic, many countries reported higher numbers of nurses leaving, reducing their hours or considering leaving the profession, alongside increased international recruitment and industrial action over pay and staffing in several countries. The pandemic also brought positive changes in some places: greater public recognition of nurses, new investments in nursing education, expanded roles for nurses, and accelerated digital innovation. Whether the lessons of the pandemic lead to lasting improvement in working conditions remains one of the defining questions for nursing.

Learning from countries that made progress

While no country has fully solved its nursing workforce challenges, several examples show what targeted action can achieve:

• Safe staffing legislation: evaluations of nurse-to-patient ratio laws in Queensland, Australia, found that improved staffing was associated with lower mortality, fewer readmissions, shorter stays and cost savings that offset much of the cost of extra nurses. California’s long-standing ratio law has also been associated with better nurse outcomes.
• Rural retention packages: countries such as Thailand have used combinations of rural recruitment, local education, financial incentives and career support to improve the number of health workers in rural areas over decades, consistent with WHO guidance that packages of measures work better than single incentives.
• Investment in education: several countries have rapidly scaled up nursing school places, apprenticeships and graduate-entry programmes, while others have funded student bursaries to attract more applicants.
• Bilateral agreements: some destination and source countries have negotiated agreements that include investment in nursing education in the source country, fair recruitment practices and options for circular migration.
• Retention programmes: health systems that implemented flexible working, career development, mentoring for new nurses and wellbeing support have reported improvements in turnover.

The common thread is sustained, multi-year investment and political commitment, rather than short-term fixes such as one-off recruitment drives.

Men in nursing and broadening the talent pool

Men remain a small minority of nurses in most countries, although proportions are higher in some regions. Encouraging more men to consider nursing, challenging stereotypes about who can care, and supporting men in the profession could help expand the workforce. Similarly, attracting mature entrants, career changers, people from under-represented ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and students from rural communities broadens the pool of future nurses and helps the workforce reflect the populations it serves.

Nursing support workers and skill mix

Many health systems rely on nursing assistants, healthcare assistants, enrolled or practical nurses and community health workers alongside registered nurses. These workers are essential, and well-designed teams make best use of everyone’s skills. However, research has raised concerns that replacing registered nurses with less qualified staff to save costs can worsen patient outcomes. The aim should be the right skill mix for patient needs, with registered nurses supervising and leading care, and with clear education and career pathways that allow support workers to progress into registered nursing if they wish.

The economic case for investing in nurses

Investing in nursing is sometimes seen only as a cost. Evidence suggests it is also an investment. Adequate nurse staffing reduces costly complications, readmissions and length of stay. Nursing jobs provide stable employment, particularly for women, and contribute to economic growth and gender equality. Strong primary and community nursing services can prevent hospital admissions and support people to live independently for longer. The WHO has argued that investing in nursing education, jobs and leadership contributes to the triple impact of better health, gender equality and stronger economies.

The first years of practice: where many nurses are lost

Studies in several countries have found that a significant proportion of newly qualified nurses leave their first job, and some leave the profession, within the first one to two years. The transition from student to registered nurse, sometimes called “transition shock”, involves sudden responsibility, heavy workloads, unfamiliar systems, night shifts and the emotional impact of caring for very sick and dying patients. New graduates often feel unprepared and unsupported, particularly when experienced colleagues are themselves stretched.

Structured transition support makes a measurable difference. Effective approaches include formal preceptorship or nurse residency programmes lasting six to twelve months, protected time for learning, reduced workloads in the first weeks, named preceptors with time to support new nurses, regular check-ins with managers, peer support groups, and opportunities to rotate between areas before choosing a specialty. Organisations that invest in new graduates typically see higher retention and confidence. See our guide to the first year as a new graduate nurse.

Experienced nurses: keeping knowledge in the workforce

At the other end of careers, experienced nurses approaching retirement hold enormous clinical knowledge and leadership capacity. Many leave earlier than they need to because of physically demanding work, inflexible shifts, night work or feeling undervalued. Retention schemes for later-career nurses include flexible and part-time roles, reduced night work, roles focused on mentoring, education and quality improvement, phased retirement and options to return after retirement. Keeping experienced nurses even a few extra years can significantly reduce shortages and strengthen support for newer colleagues.

Workplace violence and the shortage

Violence against nurses, including verbal abuse, threats, physical assault and sexual harassment, is widespread across the world and is a major reason nurses leave their jobs. Nurses in emergency departments, mental health services and long-term care are at particular risk. Violence is not “part of the job”. Prevention requires adequate staffing, safe environments, de-escalation training, security support, clear reporting systems, zero-tolerance policies and legal protections. See our in-depth guide to violence against nurses.

Key messages

• The world faces a nursing shortage measured in millions, concentrated in the poorest countries.
• The shortage results from rising demand, limited education capacity, under-investment, poor retention and maldistribution.
• International migration benefits individual nurses but can harm fragile health systems without ethical safeguards.
• Inadequate staffing harms patients and drives more nurses to leave.
• Solutions must cover education, employment, retention, scope of practice, leadership, data and ethical migration together.
• Safe staffing, fair pay, flexible work, good leadership and support for new graduates are among the most effective retention measures.

A brief history of nursing shortages

Nursing shortages are not new. Many countries experienced shortages after the Second World War as health services expanded, and recruited nurses from abroad to fill gaps, for example from the Caribbean, Africa and Asia into the United Kingdom’s newly created National Health Service. Cyclical shortages occurred in the United States and elsewhere in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, often followed by periods of relative surplus as economic conditions changed. What is different today is the scale and the global nature of the problem: rising demand in every region, ageing nursing workforces in many high-income countries, intense international competition for nurses, and the after-effects of a pandemic that pushed many nurses to breaking point. History also shows that shortages ease when governments invest consistently in education, pay and conditions, and return when that investment stops.

Climate change and the nursing workforce

Climate change is increasing the burden on health systems through heatwaves, floods, storms, droughts, wildfires, shifting patterns of infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue, food insecurity and displacement. These pressures increase demand for nursing care and put nurses themselves at risk, for example through working in overheated facilities or responding to disasters. Health systems planning their future workforce need to account for climate-related demand and build resilient services. Nurses are also increasingly involved in making health systems more sustainable and in climate and health advocacy.

What patients and the public can do

The nursing shortage affects everyone who will ever need care, which is everyone. Members of the public can support nurses by treating them with respect, reporting and refusing to tolerate abuse of staff, supporting policies and funding that invest in nursing, encouraging young people to consider nursing careers, and recognising that nurses’ working conditions are directly linked to the quality of care they and their families will receive. Public support has been decisive in winning safe staffing laws and better pay in several countries.

The future of nursing work

Looking ahead, nursing will continue to evolve. More care will move from hospitals into homes and communities, supported by technology. Advanced practice roles will grow. Nurses will lead more services, particularly for long-term conditions, older people and mental health. Digital tools and artificial intelligence may reduce some administrative burdens. But the core of nursing, skilled, compassionate, human care, will remain essential, and the need for it will keep growing. Whether the world has enough nurses to meet that need depends on choices made now.

Understanding the numbers: a short glossary

• Nurse density: the number of nurses per 10,000 people in a population, used to compare countries and regions.
• Needs-based shortage: the gap between the number of nurses available and the number needed to deliver essential health services to the whole population.
• Vacancy rate: the percentage of funded nursing posts that are unfilled at a given time.
• Turnover: the proportion of nurses leaving an organisation over a period, usually a year.
• Attrition: nurses leaving the profession altogether, or students leaving nursing education before qualifying.
• Self-sufficiency: a country’s ability to educate and retain enough nurses to meet its own needs without relying heavily on international recruitment.
• Skill mix: the combination of different types and grades of staff in a team.

Understanding these terms helps nurses engage confidently with workforce data, reports and policy debates, and makes it harder for the true scale of the problem to be hidden behind headline numbers.

Why this matters to every nurse

For nurses on the front line, the shortage can feel like a daily personal burden: another unfilled shift, another missed break, another patient who did not get the time they deserved. Understanding the wider causes helps place responsibility where it belongs, on policy and investment decisions rather than on individual nurses’ resilience. It also shows that change is possible. Every safe staffing law, pay settlement, education investment and retention programme in recent years came about because nurses, patients and their allies pushed for it.

The question is not whether the world can afford to invest in nurses, but whether it can afford not to. Without enough nurses, no health system can deliver safe care, respond to emergencies or reach everyone who needs it.

Frequently asked questions

Is the nursing shortage getting better or worse?

WHO projections suggest the global shortage may narrow modestly by 2030 as more nurses are educated, but gaps between rich and poor countries are expected to widen without targeted action.

Which countries have the biggest shortages?

Needs-based shortages are greatest in low- and lower-middle-income countries, particularly in Africa, South-East Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Many high-income countries also report significant vacancies.

Why do some countries have unemployed nurses despite shortages?

Because the shortage reflects not only how many nurses exist, but how many health systems can afford to employ. Budget constraints and hiring freezes can leave qualified nurses without jobs.

Do safe staffing laws work?

Evidence from several jurisdictions suggests that legislated or enforceable staffing standards are associated with better patient outcomes and improved nurse retention, especially when properly funded and enforced.

Is it wrong for nurses to migrate?

No. Nurses have the right to migrate. The ethical responsibility lies mainly with governments and recruiters to avoid harming fragile health systems and to protect migrant nurses.

But if the problem is so big, can anything really change?

Yes. Countries that have invested seriously in nursing education, safe staffing, pay and working conditions have seen improvements. Nurses’ collective action has won staffing laws, pay increases and better conditions in many places. The COVID-19 pandemic made the value of nurses visible to the public and policymakers as never before. The challenge is to turn that recognition into sustained investment. The nursing shortage is not inevitable; it is the result of policy choices, and different choices can produce different results.

Related: State of the World’s Nursing 2025 · WHO health workforce report · Is international nurse recruitment ethical?

Sources: World Health Organization (State of the World’s Nursing 2020 and 2025; Global Strategic Directions for Nursing and Midwifery 2021-2025; Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel; health workforce support and safeguards list; guidelines on rural retention), International Council of Nurses, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) health workforce data, Aiken et al. research on nurse staffing and patient outcomes, McHugh et al. evaluation of Queensland’s nurse staffing legislation.