New Zealand Nurses Organisation associate professional services manager Hilary Graham-Smith said the organisation was concerned about the sentiments expressed by its members and the impact on patients.
She said the HBDHB had recently signed up to implement the Care Capacity Demand Management programme, which used data to match demand for patient care with appropriate skills.
"If staffing is inadequate then the programme will demonstrate this," she said.
HBDHB chief nurse for primary and secondary care Chris McKenna said the survey was a baseline to improve upon and most mid-sized DHBs had similar findings.
"This year has been particularly busy for Hawke's Bay Hospital with a significant increase in presentations to ED. From June until the end of September, 878 more people presented to ED compared with the same period last year," she said.
"There was also a significant increase in medical and surgical admissions.
"At the same time we have also provided more elective operations for people in Hawke's Bay.
"So it was pleasing to see from the survey that our staff rate the service they provide to our patients as mostly very good."
She acknowledged the increased demand had been hard on staff, "not only from the increased work pressure but increased illness in the community also affects staff and their families".
"We are doing something about this through projects such as AIM 24/7, Acute Inpatient Management 24/7, where the next steps will be on matching capacity to demand.
"We expect to see some real benefit for our staff and patients from this part of the project, which will take priority over the coming months."
Labour health spokeswoman Annette King said not having the staff and resources to meet demand was symptomatic of an underfunded health system.
Frontline workers committed to providing the best possible care should be listened to, she said.
