The association between nurse staffing levels and a failure to respond to patients with deranged physiology: A retrospective observational study in the UK (April 2020)

Summary

Responding to abnormalities in patients’ vital signs is a fundamental aspect of nursing. However, failure to respond to patient deterioration is common and often leads to adverse patient outcomes. This study from Smith et al., in the journal Resuscitation, aimed to determine the association between registered nurse (RN) and nursing assistant (NA) staffing levels and the failure to respond promptly to patients’ abnormal physiology.

The authors found that RN, but not NA, staffing levels influence the rates of failure to respond for patients with the most abnormal vital signs (NEWS values ≥ 7). These findings offer a possible explanation for the increasingly reported association between low RN staffing and an increased risk of patient death during a hospital admission.