Nurse understaffing associated with adverse outcomes for surgical admissions (24 September 2024)

Summary

Nurses play a crucial role in maintaining the safety of surgical patients. Few nurse staffing studies have looked specifically at surgical patients to examine the impact of exposure to low staffing on patient outcomes.

The study, published in the British Journal of Surgery and conducted by University of Southampton researchers, analysed data from 213,910 NHS hospital admissions of surgical patients between April 2015 and February 2020, to see the relationship between nurse staffing and adverse outcomes.

Content

• According to the research, the relative risk of a surgical patient dying was increased by 9% for each day where registered nursing shortages were reported.
• This additional risk increased to 10% when the shortage was of nursing support staff.
• Risks for specific hospital-related conditions also increased when nurse shortages were reported.
• The study found evidence that registered nursing shortages correlated with 5% increased risk of deep vein thrombosis, 6% for pneumonia and 6% for pressure ulcers. Too few nursing assistants also increased the risk of these conditions.