MACH Health

21/12/2025

When nurse numbers fall, patients pay the price.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

According to reporting by The Times, patient deaths have risen in some NHS trusts after nursing numbers were cut.

This isn’t shocking to nurses.

It’s only shocking that we’re still pretending it’s accidental.

You don’t reduce the largest safety-critical workforce in healthcare and expect outcomes to improve. Nursing is not a “cost centre.” It’s a risk control system.

Fewer nurses means:

Missed deterioration

Delayed care

More errors

More moral injury

And ultimately, more preventable deaths

This isn’t about blaming managers or shouting at the NHS. It’s about a system that keeps making spreadsheet decisions in a human business.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

You can’t efficiency-save your way out of unsafe staffing.

You can’t recruit internationally fast enough to offset domestic burnout.

And you can’t keep losing experienced nurses and expect junior staff to magically fill the gap.

Nursing capacity is not elastic. When it snaps, patients fall through.

If we’re serious about patient safety, then nurse wellbeing, retention, and workload intelligence must sit upstream of outcomes, not be reviewed after another report, another inquiry, another apology.

At MACH Health, we believe the data already exists. We just need the courage to use it before harm occurs, not after.

So here’s the real question:

How many more signals do we need before we stop cutting nurses and start protecting them?

Using lower-paid workers to plug the gaps left by a failure to hire registered nurses damages safety, new research has shown

16/12/2025

📌 A new definition of nursing… but at what cost, and to what end?

The ANMF has endorsed the International Council of Nurses’ (ICN) new global definition of nursing and nurses. It’s positioned as modern, inclusive, and reflective of the profession’s scope and value. On paper, that’s fine.

But here’s the uncomfortable question we’re not asking loudly enough:

How much money was spent on this — and what did it actually change?

Because while definitions are being rewritten, the profession is haemorrhaging staff.

We are in the middle of a severe workforce shortage, driven by burnout, unsafe workloads, stagnant pay, moral injury, and experienced nurses walking away. A new definition does nothing to stop that.

Let’s be honest:

Redefining nursing does not recruit new nurses

It does not retain senior clinicians

It does not fix ratios, workload, or conditions

It does not stop nurses leaving in their first 5 years

And yet, time, effort, consultancy hours, governance structures, committees, international bodies, reviews, and endorsements all cost money. Real money.
Money that could have been directed into:

retention programs

transition-to-practice support

mental health and burnout prevention

flexible workforce models

data-driven workforce planning

If the cost of developing, consulting, endorsing, translating, promoting, and globally rolling out this definition isn’t publicly transparent — that’s a problem in itself.

Because in a crisis, every dollar should be doing work, not polishing language.

Professional identity matters — absolutely.
But identity without investment is just branding.

Nurses don’t need to be redefined.
They need to be supported, retained, protected, and planned for.

Until definitions are directly tied to funding, policy reform, workforce supply and measurable outcomes, this risks becoming another well-intentioned exercise that looks good in a press release — while the system continues to lose nurses at scale.

Words don’t staff wards.
People do.

And right now, we’re running out of them.

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) has welcomed and endorsed the International Council of Nurses’ (ICN) newly released definitions of nursing and the nurse - a landmark update that formally reflects the profession’s contemporary scope, identity, and contribution to global hea...

28/11/2025

🧠 If you look after nurses, you save the doctors. It really is that simple.

A new report out of New Zealand has done what most health systems keep avoiding: it spelled out the obvious.

Better nurse staffing = massive drops in physician burnout.

Not small drops. Not “maybe this helps” drops.

We’re talking major, measurable, undeniable impact.

Why?

Because when nurses are supported, resourced, and not drowning in impossible workloads, the whole clinical ecosystem stabilises.

Doctors get fewer spiralling cases.

Fewer near-misses.

Fewer 14-hour days trying to pick up the slack of a system running on fumes.

And fewer moments of “I can’t do this anymore.”

Nursing isn’t the “support act.”

We are the load-bearing structure of healthcare.

When we crack, the system cracks.

And when the system cracks, doctors hit burnout at speed.

Let’s stop pretending the fix for medical burnout is another mindfulness workshop or a leadership webinar.

The fix starts with nurse wellbeing, nurse staffing, and nurse retention.

Every study keeps repeating it.

Every frontline team keeps living it.

Every health leader needs to stop ignoring it.

If we want safer care and healthier clinicians across the board, invest in the group holding the entire place together.

And yes, this is exactly why MACH Health exists.

A healthy healthcare system starts with healthy nurses.

💭 So here’s the question:

If the evidence is this clear, what’s stopping us from actually prioritising nurse wellbeing at scale?



https://lnkd.in/gPjFMuFH

https://kaitiaki.org.nz/article/better-nurse-staffing-linked-to-major-drops-in-physician-burnout/

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

07/11/2025

🩺 Starting Monday: The Demons We Don’t Talk About.

A raw look at the truths we bury behind the word “resilience.”
Because somewhere between caring for others and surviving another shift, too many of us have lost ourselves.

We’ve all seen it. The nurse who jokes to hide the cracks. The one who stays back longer, drinks earlier, feels less each shift. The colleague who takes “time off” and never returns. We know these stories, because we’ve lived beside them, or lived them ourselves

🥃 Alcohol.
💊 Addiction.
💔 Abuse — physical, emotional, systemic.
🕯️ Su***de.

These aren’t personal failings, they’re the by-products of an environment built on chronic fatigue, moral injury, and systems that praise endurance over humanity. Even when we leave, the demons follow years later, in our sleep, our bodies, our silence.

I’ve seen nurses screamed at, broken down, and still show up. Not because they’re unbreakable, but because no one ever told them they could stop or have a permission to pause. But here’s the truth, we can change this.
We can start naming what hurts us, and we can stop calling damage “dedication.” We can choose small, daily acts of self-care that keep us human.

The Demons We Don’t Talk About

Day 1 | The Bottle Has Become the Friend – Alcoholism & the After-Shift Escape
Day 2 | The Hidden Drip – Prescription & Drug Addiction
Day 3 | The Bruised Uniform – Abuse in All Its Forms
Day 4 | The Quietest Code – Su***de in Nursing

💭 To every nurse still fighting, your story matters.
And now more than ever, preventative self-care, daily habits, and trying for the possible aren’t luxuries, they’re survival. It only when we bring these things to the forefront we can be more accepting of innovations and help

If this post has affected you or someone you know, please reach out for support.

In Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14 | In the UK: Samaritans 116 123 | In the US: 988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline.

04/11/2025

It’s a genuine honor to be featured in The Nursing Star Magazine executive feature this month. Not as a headline, but as part of a much bigger story, the movement to change how we see and support nurses everywhere.

MACH Health was built from a simple idea — that wellbeing isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.

That data can protect people, not just measure them.

And that leadership in nursing begins with empathy, not hierarchy.

To be recognised among so many incredible voices is humbling. But the real privilege is building something with, and for nurses who believe we can create a system where care doesn’t come at the cost of the caregiver.

This isn’t my story it’s ours. 💙

Thank you THE NURSING STARS MAGAZINE Mmathapelo Matshediso Mokoena for helping shine a light on what’s possible when nurses lead.

31/10/2025

LIVE EVENT 🎙️ The Nurse Collective Live #1

Permission to Pause: Why Nurses Need to Stop Before They Break

We’ve been told to keep going. To be strong. To hold the line no matter what.

But somewhere between resilience and survival, we forgot how to stop.

Next Tuesday, MACH Health founder Mark Carter will be joined by Patricia Temple. A leading nurse mentor, speaker, and founder of Nursing Wisdom+, for an open and honest conversation about Permission to Pause.

This isn’t about weakness.
It’s about worth.
Because sometimes the bravest thing a nurse can do is rest.

🗓 Tuesday, 4 November
🕗 8PM AEST | 10AM UK | 4AM US EST

🎟 Register here: 79c00bb2-f752-4aaa-acf0-776b0dbd0aa9@a4333c89-99f6-4c37-a1e7-fd93cd24df87" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/79c00bb2-f752-4aaa-acf0-776b0dbd0aa9@a4333c89-99f6-4c37-a1e7-fd93cd24df87

💬 We’ll talk about:
🩺 Why rest feels like rebellion in modern nursing
💙 The guilt nurses carry when slowing down
🔥 How to recognise burnout before it breaks you
🌿 And why stopping might just be the bravest thing you do this year

You don’t need to show up perfect.
You just need to show up.

Because together, we’re changing what it means to care, for others, and for ourselves.

27/10/2025

A stark and shameful reality: according to the Royal College of Nursing (UK), reports of racist incidents against nurses have surged by 55% in just three years, from 696 in 2022 to a projected 1,000+ in 2025.

These are not abstract statistics. These are nurses walking into work, scrubs on, hearts ready to care — and being told they “shouldn’t have come to the UK”, being refused leave with xenophobic comments, or being called “slave” by patients.

If you’re a nurse reading this — you matter. Your voice matters. Your pain is real. And if you’re a leader, an employer, a colleague — it’s on all of us to intervene.

Because this isn’t just about individual acts. It’s about a system that allows discrimination, silences complaints and normalises abuse. A system that says, you can bear this because you chose caring.

At MACH Health we say: that stops now.
We’re building a nurse-led community where wellbeing, safety and belonging come first. Where your identity, whatever your ethnicity, background or nationality, is acknowledged and protected.

💬 So let’s talk:
👉 If you look around your workplace or care setting — do you see active allyship or quiet compliance?
👉 What one change would you make today to ensure every nurse enters their shift feeling safe, seen and valued?
Drop your thought below 👇
Because change doesn’t happen when we whisper. It happens when we speak. Together.

Royal College of Nursing calls on government to stop using anti-migrant rhetoric, which it says emboldens racist behaviour

26/10/2025

New Series : The Value of a Nurse - Counting What’s Always Been Ignored

Tomorrow, we start putting numbers to something the system has never had the courage to count. The value of a nurse. Not in sentiment or slogans, but in skills, decisions, and impact.

Every cannula inserted, wound dressed, life stabilised. Every leadership skill forged through chaos. Every system held together by nurses who just “make it work.” Every hand we hold so a patient doesn’t die alone.

This isn’t charity — it’s competence economics.

Across the Nurse Value Series, we’ll break down what the profession truly creates:

The technical value — critical decisions made under pressure that prevent ICU admissions.

The clinical value — errors averted, deteriorations caught, complications avoided.

The leadership value — teams held together by unrecognised coordinators in chaos.

The system value — billions saved because nurses adapt where structure fails.

The human value — the lives extended, the families reunited, the grief softened.

And then we’ll ask:

If every one of those moments had a dollar value, what would nursing be worth?

At Mach Health, we’re building the data to answer that question to quantify the unseen ROI of nursing.

Because only when we measure what matters can we start to change what’s broken.

Tomorrow, it begins.

The Nurse Value Series from day one of study to the day we retire.

If you’re ready to be part of a global community that’s redefining worth ,join The Nurse Collective The Nurse Collective

Because this time, we’re not asking for recognition. We’re demanding valuation.

24/10/2025

Day 3 – The Movement Begins

It’s here.

The whisper became a spark.

The spark has become a movement.

Today, The Nurse Collective goes live.

And this is your invitation, to be part of it.

This isn’t just another group or initiative.

It’s a global home for every nurse, built on unity, not rank. Where leaders, students, educators, and frontline nurses stand shoulder to shoulder.

Where there is no competition, only collaboration.

Because in this community, we are all the same.

It’s for the nurse who’s tired, the one who’s hopeful, the one who’s unsure.

It’s for those who’ve lost their spark — and those helping others find theirs.

For the lonely student who needs direction.

For the seasoned leader who still remembers what it felt like to care too much.

This is where we start to heal.

Where we learn, share, connect, and rebuild the profession we love, together.

If you’ve ever said, “Something has to change” this is that change.

If you’ve ever felt unseen, this is where you’ll be seen.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your voice matters, this is where it does.

Join us.

Be part of the movement.

Because the future of nursing won’t be written by systems, it’ll be written by us.

🔹 Join The Nurse Collective on LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/gSUzRK4d

🔹 Join our Facebook Group: https://lnkd.in/gsDfYZ2f

And next week, we will doing lives to meet our global family.

We’ll be talking openly about what this movement means,

exploring the challenges we face,

and growing the urgency and passion for change that nurses everywhere are feeling.

Over time, we’ll host live sessions across different time zones so no matter where you are in the world, you can be part of this global conversation.

The link is live. The doors are open.

Welcome to The Nurse Collective.

23/10/2025

Day 2 : The Readiness

Yesterday was the whisper.

Today is the spark.

Something is stirring in our profession, a feeling we can’t ignore anymore.

A belief that nurses everywhere are done waiting for permission to matter.

This is where it begins — not with slogans, but with purpose.

Not with hierarchy, but with heart.

The Nurse Collective isn’t an organisation.

It’s a vision, of what nursing could be when we stand together.

It’s a mission, to unite every nurse, student, educator, and leader under one purpose: to protect, empower, and reimagine our profession from the inside out.

It’s a passion, for change that runs deeper than policy or pay grades. Change that starts with us.

We want every nurse here.

The ones who are thriving, and the ones barely holding on.

The ones who feel unseen, unheard, or unsure if they can keep doing this.

The ones who are broke, jaded, or unaware of their own burnout.

From the most scared, lonely student, to the most experienced, prestigious leader.



Because in this community, we are all the same.

When nurses unite, across borders, roles, and generations we don’t just raise our voices; we shift the future of care itself.

The readiness is here. The belief is real. The movement has begun.

This is The Nurse Collective.

Built on unity. Driven by purpose.

21/10/2025

The Shift Begins

As a nurse, I’ve seen the best and worst of what this profession can be.
The quiet heroism, the laughter that hides exhaustion, the pride that masks pain. Over the years, I’ve come to realise, we are holding up an entire system that no longer holds us.

I’ve worked in hospitals, aged care, agency, community, corporate, education, research

I’ve seen nurses pushed beyond limits — physically, mentally, emotionally and we just keep going, because that’s what we do.

But somewhere along the way, we stopped looking after ourselves and each other.

That’s why I’m done waiting for someone else to fix it.
Because it’s not coming from above. It has to come from us.
Not as individuals fighting alone, but as a collective — nurses, educators, students, leaders — standing side by side.

No competition. Only collaboration.
Because when one of us rises, we all do. That’s what this is about.

The Nurse Collective by MACH Health

It’s not an organisation, It’s not a campaign. It’s a movement, born out of frustration, hope, and the deep belief that our profession deserves better.
Today is the start.
The whisper before the wave.
A reminder that we can’t pour from empty cups forever, and that together, we can build something that finally gives back to the people who give everything.
I’m ready.
Are you?

It's coming Friday!

13/10/2025

When insurers enter the mental health fight, watch the system lean.
Allianz Australia’s new Structural Change Program is an interesting market response. But the reason they’re moving is simple: soaring costs, especially in health & social care, are now unsustainable.

Here’s what the data shows, especially for healthcare:
The Health care & social assistance industry has the highest number of serious workers’ compensation claims for mental health conditions in Australia.

In 2020-21, the median compensation paid for serious mental health claims was $58,615, compared to $15,743 for all injury claims.
Mental health claims also come with much longer downtime: the median time lost for psychological injury was 34.2 weeks, vs 8.0 weeks for physical claims.

Across all industries, average mental-health-related claims run about
$45,900, roughly 5× the average cost for physical injuries. Foremind
In dollar terms, $543 million was paid in workers’ compensation benefits for psychological injuries in Australia (across industries). Allianz Australia
When we layer on the emotional and operational toll in hospitals, clinics, aged care, where staff face trauma, burnout, violence, emotional load daily, these figures are more than statistics. They’re real-life losses of skilled people, escalating premiums, and system pressure.

At MACH Health, we believe healthcare deserves better than reactive patches. You need structural change: risk-measuring systems, predictive early support, embedded resilience.

Allianz’s move challenges us all:

Will your organisation wait for insurers to force change… or begin building a safer, sustainable system today?

New research from Allianz Australia reveals that supporting mental health in the workplace continues to be a challenge, as managers and employees alike are feeling mental distress as a result of workload.