NHS nurses are facing growing risks of making mistakes with patients’ medication because one in eight nursing jobs are now vacant, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has warned.

Widespread understaffing is creating huge pressure on those who remain, and “medication errors become far more likely when staff are overstretched and unable to give their patients the attention they deserve” the RCN said on Saturday.

The warning came on the fourth annual World Patient Safety Day, which was established by the World Health Organisation (WHO) “to call for global solidarity and concerted action to improve patient safety.”

The WHO’s theme this year is “medication safety.”

The NHS in England alone has 50,000 nurse and midwife vacancies.

The RCN has warned that the staffing crisis is deepening as 20 per cent of the remaining nursing workforce approaches retirement, and that not enough replacement staff are being recruited due mainly to low pay.

RCN director for England Patricia Marquis said: “Keeping patients safe is at the heart of everything nurses and nursing support workers do and this year’s theme, medication safety, is about precisely that.

“But with a record one in eight nursing posts in England vacant — and a similar picture across the rest of Britain — the workforce crisis means care is being left undone and patients put at risk.

“Medication errors become far more likely when staff are overstretched and unable to give their patients the attention they deserve.

“Nursing staff take enormous pride in their work and are distraught that they can’t provide the care they want to give.

“We know the best way to improve patient safety is to have the right number of staff on shift.”

The RCN, Britian and Europe’s biggest union for nurses, says that poor pay and falling real-wage values are a major cause of nurses leaving the profession and failure to recruit replacements.

The organisation is balloting its members on strike action for the first time in its 106-year history.

Ms Marquis said: “The public knows that nursing staff are their greatest advocates and this support runs both ways.

“Ministers need to listen and pay nursing fairly — this is a simple way to recruit and retain more of them.”

The Department for Health and Social Care has been contacted for comment.