Georgie Burgess
3 October 2025: As new nurse-to-patient ratios of one to six continue to come into effect across the ACT, a University of Canberra honours student is embarking on research into exactly what difference they are already having on the Territory’s health workforce.
This is the first time ratios have been introduced in this manner, with previous staffing levels scheduled using the ‘Nursing Hours per Patient Day’ model which calculated ‘care hours’ needed to deliver clinical care to patients by midwives from estimating workloads.
Polly Stavropoulos, a midwife and Faculty of Health student, is looking to understand the effects that introducing a staffing model that includes babies in ratio counts has had on overall midwife and nurse job satisfaction, as well as their emotional wellbeing, in the ACT through her midwifery honours project
“We really don’t have much information as to midwives’ personal perspectives, and how the new ratios have affected them,” Ms Stavropoulos said.
“There are projections and numbers that provide very quantitative data, but very little research has been done which has sat midwives down and asked about how they’re going.”
Ms Stavropoulos will soon be doing just that.
Selecting three focus groups, including one group who only work the night shift, ensures that a range of voices and experiences are heard.
“I’m looking at midwives and nurses that have worked in the postnatal space for over a year, because that will give us an idea of how things were before [the ratios came into effect], versus how things are now,” Ms Stavropoulos said.
A total of $86 million was allocated in the ACT’s 2024-25 budget to help implement the new model. This included hiring an additional 137 full-time nurse and midwife staff over an 18-month period (Source: ACT Government).
North Canberra Hospital was the first to start, introducing the ratios around six months ago. The Canberra Hospital then began its staged roll-out in August.
Ms Stavropouloshas experienced the new ratios firsthand since entering the workforce, following her completion of a Bachelor of Midwifery.
“Since the changes came into effect, I have noticed that some of the pressure has been taken off myself and other midwives when working in the postnatal space,” she said.
The ACT and Queensland are so far the only two jurisdictions to begin implementing the ratios in Australia, but Stavropoulos hopes legislators across the border will be able to look to her research in the future, to see the benefits.
“If we can show that there are better outcomes for midwives and nurses, and for women, families and babies, then perhaps it could get implemented in other jurisdictions as well,” she said.
“If midwives are not burnt out, they have more capacity to look after women and babies, then it’s a win all round.”
In Queensland, the ratios were first introduced in September 2024 and are now a quarter of the way through a staged four-year rollout, which has focused first on higher complexity level hospitals (Source: Queensland Government).
Ms Stavropoulos is ready to see if the findings up north will apply down here in Canberra.
“They found significant differences between pre- and post-implementation of the new ratios, including optimal scope of practice in postnatal care, improved workplace culture, reduced admission of newborns into special care, and shortened length of stay in the special care nursery,” Ms Stavropoulos said.
