We have a duty to ensure staffing levels are adequate. Patients have a right to be cared for by appropriately qualified and experienced staff in safe environments. This right is enshrined within the National Health Service (NHS) Constitution, and the NHS Act 1999 makes explicit the board’s corporate accountability for quality. Nurses’ responsibilities regarding safe staffing are stipulated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), covering every registered nurse in the UK. And in England, demonstrating sufficient staffing is one of the six essential standards that all health care providers (both within and outside of the NHS) must meet to comply with Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulation.
In nursing homes there is an average ratio of 18 patients per registered nurse during the day, and 26 patients per registered nurse at night (RCN - Guidance on Safe Nursing Staff Levels in the UK). There is a real lack of data on nurse staffing levels in the community, and what data does exist needs to be treated with caution to ensure that like is being compared with like – definitions of both the numerators (in terms of staff) and denominators (in terms of populations served) can vary hugely.
Accurately completing a skill mix assessment tool will help to provide more accurate calculation of the numbers of staff required to help ensure the needs of residents
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