The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has called on the Government to legislate for mandatory safe  nurse-patient ratios.

At its annual delegate conference in Kilkenny, the INMO called for one registered nurse to every four patients in busy acute medical and surgical wards and, in the case of midwifery, one midwife to 29.5 births, which it says is internationally accepted as the necessary ratio in maternity services.

The iNMO says safer nurse-patient ratios are necessary if catastrophes like that which occurred in England's Mid-Staffordshire Hospital, where up to 1,200 unnecessary deaths occurred, are to be avoided.

It has pointed out that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all, since March this year, set mechanisms to determine minimum nurse/midwife cover as a result of a succession of reports cataloguing major failures in patient care.

Irish patients deserve the same protection, according to the INMO, which is also seeking that the staffing in each ward be publicly displayed, each day, as is now the case, by law, in the UK.