Safe Staffing

We take staffing seriously and work with our teams to ensure that there are enough nurses, with the appropriate skills required, to provide the right level of care for patients.

Every day the number of nurses by shift is reviewed to ensure all ward areas are safe at a daily Matron meeting. Each ward displays the numbers of nurses planned for duty versus the number of nurses expected on shift so that patients and visitors are informed about each clinical area.

Our staffing levels and skill mix will be reviewed every six months. We undertake these reviews by studying the needs of our patients using validated nurse staffing tools such as the safer care tool and professional judgement. These help us to understand how dependent our patients are (this means how unwell they may be and what level of care is required). We are then able to decide the skill mix we need to provide the right level of care for our patients. We also undertake regular one to one meetings with ward managers, matrons and the chief nurse to investigate the information about staffing and ensure everyone is clear about what is required.

Every month we review our staffing to assess the planned roster (the number of staff) versus the actual staff on shift. This is completed on every ward where we have patients staying at least one night and captures staffing ‘fill rates’ in hours. We can then review any wards where staffing may fall below what is agreed as safe and triangulate this information with quality and safety indicators to assess for any impact upon the quality of care provided. This will be available in the Board reports that will be taken to the Trust board, published below.

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