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hub Topic Lead, Eve Mitchell, describes how her passion to change care quality and to put workforce at the centre of every health and social care organisation’s planning processes led her on a journey to create the innovative tech start-up, ‘Establishment Genie’: an online workforce planning, safe staffing and benchmarking tool. 

White paper on nurse staffing levels for patient safety and workforce safety was produced in 2019 by the Saudi Patient Safety Center and the International Council of Nurses. The paper brings together evidence from a wide range of sources, covering different countries and contexts, showing that having the right numbers of nurses, in the right place and at the right time, delivers quality and safety for the populations they serve, and will help to retain nurses.

The Nurse Staffing levels (Wales) Act 2016 became law on 21st March 2016. Health Boards now have a legal duty to regard the importance of ensuring appropriate levels of nurse staffing in all settings. In adult acute care settings, an appropriate nurse staffing level must be calculated and maintained. Health Boards have a duty to report on compliance with staffing requirements and take action if failings occur. The Welsh Government has issued guidance on how to determine appropriate staffing levels.

BMJ Quality & Safety, was to determine the association between daily levels of registered nurse (RN) and nursing assistant staffing and hospital mortality.

Major critical illness events, such as cardiopulmonary arrest and intensive care unit (ICU) transfer, disrupt workflow in a hospital ward. Other patients on the same ward may receive inadequate attention, especially if their care team is distracted by the emergency. Most studies have concentrated on patient-level variables associated with outcomes.This paper, published by JAMA, looks at the risk to ward occupants associated with patients on the same ward experiencing critical illness.

It’s the little ripples from management that make a huge impact on safety for staff. If we don’t look after our staff, we won’t have anyone to safeguard our patients. It’s simple really! This going home checklist helps remind staff how important it is to look after their own mental health and well-being.

This paper, published in BMC Public Health, reports the results of a qualitative study that explored UK healthcare worker's (HCW) views about working during an influenza pandemic, in order to identify factors that might influence their willingness and ability to work and to identify potential sources of any perceived duty on HCWs to work.

This interview with intensivist and CEO of the the UK Sepsis Trust, Ron Daniels, shown on the Victoria Derbyshire programme, states the '... the UK cannot increase its ICU capacity "rapidly enough" to deal with levels of coronavirus patients'' Fears are growing for the safety of patients who will be contracting the virus, some of who will need intensive care, but there is not enough beds or trained staff to care for them appropriately.

To match the increasing demands that the coronavirus pandemic will place on critical care, new and flexible models of care are required. This document: states principles for deploying and redeploying staff to match the needs of a critical care department, independent of where this care is delivered sets out indicative staffing ratios and competencies suggests professional groups that could potentially form part of this new workforce during times of surge and super-surge. This guidance is correct at the time of publishing. However, as it is subject to updates, please use the hyperlinks within the document to confirm the information is accurate.

The Mental Health Optimal Staffing Tool (MHOST) was created, with the support of Health Education England, in recognition that there was no published, evidenced based mental health workforce tool which could be used in mental health hospitals. It has been developed alongside clinical leaders and workforce staff in mental health trusts and rigorously tested and validated.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) developed an evidence-based guideline on safe staffing for nursing in inpatient mental health settings. This guideline is primarily for NHS provider organisations or other organisations that provide or commission inpatient mental health services for the NHS. 

This is the 15th annual clinical radiology census report by The Royal College of Radiologists. The census received a 100% response rate, meaning this report presents a comprehensive picture of the clinical radiology workforce in the UK as it stood in October 2022.   Key findings The workforce is not keeping pace with demand for services. In 2022, the clinical radiology workforce grew by just 3%. In comparison, demand for diagnostic activity is rising by over 5% annually, and by around 4% for interventional radiology services.  The UK now has a 29% shortfall of clinical radiologists, which will rise to 40% in five years without action. By 2027, an additional 3,365 clinical radiologists will be needed to keep up with demand for services.   This will have an inevitable impact on the quality-of-care consultants are able to provide. Only 24% of clinical directors believe they had sufficient radiologists to deliver safe and effective patient care.   Interventional radiologists are still limited with the care they can provide. Nearly half (48%) of trusts and health boards have inadequate IR services, and only 1/3 (34%) of clinical directors felt they had enough interventional radiologists to deliver safe and effective patient care.   Stress and burnout are increasingly common among healthcare professionals, risking an exodus of experienced staff. 100% of clinical directors (CDs) are concerned about staff morale and burnout in their department. 76% of consultants (WTE) who left in 2022 were under 60.  We are seeing increasing trends that the workforce is simply not able to manage the increase in demand for services. 99% of departments were unable to manage their reporting demand without incurring additional costs.   Across the UK, health systems spent £223 million on managing excess reporting demand in 2022, equivalent to 2,309 full-time consultant positions. Access the full census report here Related content: The benefits of a nursing led Vascular Access Service Team: A White Paper to outline a standardised structure and approach for the NHS to deliver vascular access services in every hospital (27 June 2022)