A significant proportion of turnover costs are attributed to temporary replacement, highlighting the importance of nurse retention. The authors suggest a minimum dataset is also required to eliminate potential variability across countries, states, hospitals and departments.

Nurse turnover is a critical issue facing workforce planners across the globe, particularly in light of protracted and continuing workforce shortages. An ageing population coupled with the rise in complex and chronic diseases, have contributed to increased demands placed on the health system and importantly, nurses who themselves are ageing. Costs associated with nurse turnover are attracting more attention, however existing measurements of turnover show inconsistent findings which can be attributed to differences in study design, metrics used to calculate turnover and variations in definitions for turnover. This paper will report the rates and costs of nurse turnover across three States in Australia.

Increasing retirement age may retain older nurses in the workforce, however, the impact on the health of older nurses is not known, nor is the impact for employers of older nurses continuing to work known. Employers must facilitate workplace changes to accommodate older nurses.

Internationally, shortages in the nursing workforce, escalating patient demands, and financial constraints within the health system have led to the growth of unlicensed nursing support workers. Recently, in relation to the largest publicly funded health system (National Health Service), it was reported that extensive substitution of registered nurses with unskilled nursing support workers resulted in inadequate patient care, increased morbidity and mortality rates, and negative nurse outcomes. We argue that it is timely to consider regulation of nursing support workers with their role and scope of practice clearly defined. Further, the addition of these workers in a complementary model of care (rather than substitutive model) should also be explored in future research, in terms of impact on patient and nurse outcomes.

Retaining older nurses in the workforce is an important strategy for managing workforce shortages. Nurse executives will need to consider strategies that will enhance retention of older nurses and focus on the reasons older nurses want to keep working.