Nurses and Midwives Association Tamworth branch secretary Jill Telfer welcomes Minns state government Safe Staffing Working Group

Implementing new nurse to patient ratios is a "game changer", NSW Nurses' and Midwives Association Tamworth branch secretary Jill Telfer said, as the state government announced a working group to get the job done.

'Safe Staffing' will replace the more than a decade old Nursing Hours Per Patient Day model, which came in during the previous Labor government.

"It will mean for us that we know that for every shift, we have the right number of nurses to care for the patients that we have," Ms Telfer said.

"And that will be a game changer, because that's not what we've got."

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The Minns state government announced the formation of a working group designed to manage patient ratios in hospitals across the public system on Thursday, April 27.

After being implemented in emergency departments first, the new ratios will be introduced in other departments.

The working group ensuring there's one patient to three nurses in ED is the first step to safe staffing in hospitals, health minister Ryan Park said.

"I have great confidence in this group and the expertise it will bring to implementing safe staffing levels in our hospitals," he said.

"It won't be easy to undo a decade of rising wait times and under staffing, but this government is determined to begin to turn things around."

The group will consist of three NSW Health representatives and five from the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association, and will meet for the first time next month.

Working together will bring meaningful change to the staffing and rosters of hospitals, Ms Telfer said.

"Whether you're a bigger site like Tamworth, a smaller hospital like Gunnedah, and then when you get out to our smaller Multi Purpose Services, we really need to know that we've got the right staffing on to provide safe patient care," she said.

The government must also look at making nursing attractive and recruiting staff, she said.

"There's some change to come," she said.

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