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Showing results for tags 'Safe staffing'.
Found 275 results
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News Article
'Blame culture' and unsafe staff levels at NHS trust
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
An NHS trust at the centre of a breast cancer care scandal had unsafe staffing levels and a "blame culture", inspectors have found. County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust (CDDNFT) was told it "must make immediate improvements" by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), following a series of inspections late last year. The watchdog found "standards of care had deteriorated" and staff said they were "actively discouraged from speaking up about concerns". The trust accepted the findings and said "significant work" had already been done to strengthen patient safety, improve services and support staff. Durham Police was already investigating whether any criminal offences had been committed before the report, after multiple failings in breast cancer services at the trust, including missed cancers and unnecessary mastectomies. CQC inspectors identified "significant and serious safety concerns" at surgery services at University Hospital North Durham, Darlington Memorial Hospital and Bishop Auckland Hospital in October. These related to safe staffing, escalation when patient health was deteriorating, record-keeping, and learning from incidents. CQC deputy director of hospitals in the North East, Chris Storton, said it was concerning staff "didn't feel listened to and had to repeatedly raise the same issues". Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 June 2026 -
News Article
Midwives ‘awake for 24hrs’ at under-fire maternity unit
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A maternity service has been given a “good” rating by the Care Quality Commission, despite inspectors finding midwives being asked to work back-to-back shifts with no sleep breaks. The report published today rates both of Oxford University Hospitals’ units – at the John Radcliffe Hospital and the Horton General Hospital – as “good” overall. This is despite its finding several safety concerns at the main site, John Radcliffe. OUH is also one of 12 trusts under examination by a government-commissioned maternity review, amid concerns raised by campaigners about standards and traumatic births. On a visit in October, Care Quality Comission inspectors found seven breaches of four of its “fundamental standards” at the John Radcliffe, and rated it “requires improvement” for safety. Inspectors found inadequate staffing levels and unsafe working hours. They reported: “Community staff raised concerns about the on-call system because there were times when they were called to work a 12-hour night shift after working a day shift. “Managers redeployed community staff to backfill hospital shifts overnight during busy periods. Which resulted in extended periods without rest. Staff told us this meant they were awake for more than 24 hours, which they felt impacted their wellbeing and patient safety.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 June 2026 -
EventuntilNursing is central to patient safety, quality of care and the sustainability of health systems, yet its contribution is frequently undervalued in policy and practice). This seminar will present an overview of the existing international and UK evidence on the association between safe nurse staffing and patient and staff outcomes, including mortality, failure‑to‑rescue and quality of care. It will examine how inadequate staffing is linked to missed care, preventable harm, staff burnout and attrition, contributing to the widening workforce crisis across health and care systems. Attention will be paid to the gendered nature of the nursing workforce, with women comprising nearly nine in ten registrants in the UK, and how structural inequities, misrecognition and limited professional agency shape decision‑making about safety and workforce investment. Positioning nursing as a critical yet often invisible ‘safety net’, this session demonstrates that patient safety cannot be meaningfully addressed without nursing workforce evidence at its core. Speaker: Dr Kate Kirk, Associate Director of Nursing Workforce Academy, Royal College of Nursing and Prof Amanda Adegboye, Head of Workforce Research, Royal College of Nursing Register
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Content ArticleInternational medical graduates (IMGs) make up a significant proportion of general practitioners (GPs) in high-income countries such as the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (USA), Australia, and Canada. This paper published in International Medical Education, compares views about IMGs with their own views in relation to the timing of GP placements in GP specialty training programs in the UK. It presents an inductive thematic analysis of focus groups with GP specialty trainers and trainees (149 participants across 32 focus groups), examining opinions about the ideal timing of GP placements
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Content ArticleThis systematic review in JAMA Network Open aimed to assess the magnitude and moderators of the association between nurse burnout and healthcare quality and safety. The meta-analysis covered 85 studies which included 288, 581 nurses. The results show that nurse burnout was associated with: a lower patient safety climate and patient safety grade more nosocomial infections, patient falls, medication errors and adverse events lower patient satisfaction ratings lower nurse-assessed quality of care. The associations were consistent across nurse age, sex, work experience and geography. Based on these findings, the authors of the study suggest that systems-level interventions for nurse burnout may improve patient outcomes.
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News Article
Secret files reveal 1 in 3 hospitals in England missing 10% of nurses
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
After a ten-month battle, Channel 4 News’ FactCheck team has obtained NHS data revealing 1 in 3 of England’s hospitals are missing at least 10% of their planned-for nurses across their wards. After the Mid-Staffordshire scandal, the government at the time promised to shine a light on the nursing understaffing that had contributed to putting patients at risk, sometimes even costing their lives. For several years, crucial data was publicly available from NHS England. But in 2018, it was quietly shelved, and it hasn’t been possible to see it nationally since. The situation is even more serious in critical care where 20% of nurses were missing from 1 in 5 units. While in neonatal care that increases to 1 in 3 wards. Watch the full news story Source: Channel 4 News, 20 March 2025 -
News Article
Nearly one in five UK care workers feel unsafe while on shift, survey finds
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Nearly one in five UK care workers feel unsafe while on shift, according to a new survey highlighting the array of pressures facing the frontline workforce. The stark finding comes as part of a global survey published on the fifth anniversary of Covid being declared a global pandemic, amid warnings from the World Health Organization of a looming shortage of 11 million healthcare workers by 2030. In the report from Uni Global Union, which surveyed more than 11,000 health and social care workers from 63 nations, with 2,132 in the UK including doctors, more than a third reported experiencing or witnessing violence or harassment at work at least monthly. And in what the union described as a global staffing crisis, less than half of those surveyed worldwide believed their career to be sustainable until retirement age. In the UK, where more than 700 care workers were polled, two-thirds said they were frequently too short-staffed to provide a high quality of care to patients, defined in the survey as “when the number of staff is too low compared to the needs of patients”. This included 33% who said this was “always” the case, while just 8% said they were “never” or “rarely” short-staffed. Read full story Source: The Independent, 10 March 2025 -
Event
IHI Forum
Sam posted an event in Community Calendar
untilThe IHI Forum is a four-day conference that has been the home of quality improvement in health care for more than 30 years. Dedicated improvement professionals from across the globe will be convening to tackle health care's most pressing challenges: improvement capability, patient and workforce safety, equity, climate change, artificial intelligence, and more. Register -
Community PostPhysician associates are healthcare professionals who work as part of a multidisciplinary team with supervision from a named senior doctor, providing care to patients in primary, secondary and community care environments. First introduced in 2003, PAs have become increasingly talked about in healthcare and in the media, with many discussions focused on the safety of the current approach. We want to hear from patients and carers. Have you, or someone you care for, got an experience of being seen by a PA that you would like to share? Do you feel more information about the PA role would be useful for patients? Do you have any other comments, concerns or perspectives you would like to add? Please comment below (you'll need to sign up first, for free) or contact the team at [email protected]
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Content Article
A strategy for the care workforce (TUC, August 2023)
Patient-Safety-Learning posted an article in Social care
The Trade Unions Congress (TUC) is proposing a new care workforce strategy for England, developed with trade unions and informed by the voice and experiences of care workers. This strategy document sets out the critical building blocks to ensure care workers are valued and supported, as a key means of addressing the current staffing crisis and improving access to and quality of social and childcare services. The strategy proposes four key focus areas for the national care workforce strategy: Worker voices heard and valued including through sectoral collective bargaining arrangements and through the creation of National Partnership Forums in social care and childcare. Decent pay and conditions for all care workers through a collectively bargained sectoral agreement on fair pay and decent working conditions, a new sectoral minimum wage of £15 per hour, sick pay, secure contracts and full payment for all time worked, as well as access to efficient labour market enforcement mechanisms. Skills, training, and progression pathways with nationally negotiated training frameworks to ensure consistency and quality. These should be aligned with national pay structures to make sure staff are fairly renumerated and can progress as they acquire new skills and knowledge. Training must be accredited and qualifications recognised and transferrable to new employers. Protect health, safety, and wellbeing including ensuring that staffing levels are based on care and education needs and not arbitrary ratios. And a zero-tolerance approach to workplace abuse with comprehensive safeguarding and support, notably for staff who may be at increased risk of experiencing abuse and harassment including Black and migrant workers. -
Content ArticleThis study in Intensive and Critical Care Nursing examined the association between safety attitudes, quality of care, missed care, nurse staffing levels and the rate of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) in adult intensive care units (ICUs). The authors concluded that positive safety culture and better nurse staffing levels can lower the rates of HAIs in ICUs. Improvements to nurse staffing will reduce nursing workloads, which may reduce missed care, increase job satisfaction, and, ultimately, reduce HAIs. Key findings ICUs with strong job satisfaction had lower incidence and nurse-reported frequency of CLABSI, CAUTI, and VAP. Missed care was common, with 73.11% of nurses reporting missing at least one required care activity on their last shift. The mean patient-to-nurse ratio was 1.95. Increased missed care and higher workload were associated with higher HAIs. Nurses’ perceptions of CLABSI and VAP frequency were positively associated with the actual occurrence of CLABSI and VAP in participating units.
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Content ArticleGeorgia Stevenson discusses NHS England’s Long Term Workforce Plan, evaluating its potential to alleviate staffing shortages, enhance training routes, and ultimately improve care quality in maternity and neonatal services.
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Content ArticleThe presentation was held following the inaugural William Rathbone X Lecture, given by Professor Alison Leary, who spoke on the highly topical subject, ‘Thinking differently about nursing workforce challenges.’ The presentation can be watched from The Queen's Nursing Institute website.
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Content ArticleThis 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)
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Content ArticleIn this opinion piece for the BMJ, Partha Kar looks at the current debate surrounding the role of medical associate professionals (MAPs) in the NHS. He highlights the concerns raised by many that MAPs are “doctors on the cheap” and outlines the reasons for friction between junior doctors and MAPs, which include the issues of pay, training and regulation. He also outlines issues facing locally employed doctors (LEDs), international medical graduates (IMGs) and specialist, associate specialists (SASs) including lack of access to training, supervision and career progression. He makes five suggestions to improve the situation and calls for a pause to consider how these different roles can interact and work together, for the good of both staff and the health service.
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Content Article
This is part of our series of Patient Safety Spotlight interviews, where we talk to people working for patient safety about their role and what motivates them. Jenny talks about the challenge of keeping up with and prioritising new guidance and the need to streamline recommendations to ensure they are implemented efficiently. She also discusses the importance of getting the basics, like staffing levels, right and how sea swimming has influenced how she sees patient safety. -
Content ArticleThis report by the Nuffield Trust looks at workforce training issues in England, arguing that the domestic training pipeline for clinical careers has been unfit for purpose for many years. It presents research that highlights leaks across the training pathway, from students dropping out of university, to graduates pursuing careers outside the profession they trained in and outside public services. Alongside high numbers of doctors, nurses and other clinicians leaving the NHS early in their careers, this is contributing to publicly funded health and social care services being understaffed and under strain. It is also failing to deliver value for money for the huge taxpayer investment in education and training. Key facts More than 83,000 students accepted a place to study an undergraduate or postgraduate clinical degree (including medicine, nursing, midwifery and the allied health professions) across the UK in 2022. £2.6 billion was spent on undergraduate education and training in 2022/23 in England, with a further £2.5 billion spent on postgraduate medicine and dentistry. Only half of nurses, midwives and nursing associates (52%) and two in five doctors (39%) joining the UK professional registers were trained domestically in the latest year of data. Around one in eight nursing (13%) and radiography (13%) students did not gain their intended degree between 2014 and 2020, compared with 5% for physiotherapy. Attrition was on the rise for nursing, physiotherapy and radiography in the two years before the Covid-19 pandemic – for radiotherapy it was up to one in six (17%) in 2018/19 compared with 13% in 2016/17. Only one in 14 nursing graduates (7%) do not begin their career as a nurse after graduating. However, around one in nine midwifery graduates (11%) and one in seven occupational therapy graduates (15%) do not immediately join their respective profession. 6,325 fewer new nurses with a UK nationality joined NHS hospital and community services in the year to March 2022 compared with the two years before that (a fall of 32%). Around one in five radiographers (17%), nurses (18%), occupational therapists (21%) and physiotherapists (21%) have left NHS hospital and community settings within two years… this is broadly twice the level seen for midwives (10%), although some professions have more alternative employment opportunities than others, both inside the public sector (for example, general practice) and outside (for example, private practice and social care). The annual leaving rate from NHS hospital and community services flattens out after five years (leaver rates in the subsequent three years vary from 1 percentage point for nurses to 5 percentage points for occupational therapists). Most medical students successfully graduate and start their first foundation year (which they must complete to become fully registered) but only 30% of those completing foundation training in 2021/22 continued straight into GP or consultant training posts. Fewer than three in five doctors (56%) in ‘core training’ remained (even in a different role) in NHS hospital and community services in England eight years later, with half (24%) of this attrition seen in the first two years.
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Content ArticleThe nurse-to-patient ratio represents the number of patients a registered nurse cares for during a shift. Most hospitals have guidelines to ensure safe staffing ratios, but staffing shortages have led to heavier nursing workloads. This article outlines which US states have laws and regulations in place for safe staffing ratios.
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News Article
NHS 'to employ half of public sector by 2026'
Patient-Safety-Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS workforce plan will cost £50 billion and result in the health service employing half the public sector by the 2030s, analysis concludes today. Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has in effect “stolen more than a decade’s worth of budgets” from his successors by setting out plans to hire almost a million extra NHS staff without a clear way to pay for them, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says. Hunt has been urged to use his autumn statement to start setting out whether tax rises, borrowing or cuts elsewhere will be used to fund the “massive spending commitment”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 30 August 2023 -
News Article
NHS whistleblowers warn of 'unsafe' A&E staff shortages
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A group of senior doctors has accused NHS Grampian of ignoring their safety concerns about emergency departments. They told BBC Scotland News they were speaking out because they feel they cannot deliver a safe level of care. The medics said staff shortages meant Grampian's two A&Es have no senior registrars on shift to make key decisions about patients for the majority of weekend night shifts. Documents seen by the BBC News show medics have been raising concerns since 2021, both with NHS Grampian and the Scottish government, and in July this year submitted a formal whistleblowing complaint about the situation. One doctor said: "The staff are in an impossible situation. "We are witnessing ongoing harm with unacceptable delays to the assessment and treatment of patients. "There have been avoidable deaths and at other times there are too long delays getting to patients who may be suffering from a serious condition like stroke or sepsis." Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 August 2023 -
News ArticleNHS mental health services are stuck in a “vicious cycle” of short staffing and overwhelming pressures, a government committee has warned. Rising demand for mental health services has “outstripped” the number of staff working within NHS organisations, according to the public accounts committee. A report from the committee warned that ministers must act to get services out of a “doom loop” in which staff shortages is hitting morale and leading people to quit the already-stretched services. It found staffing across mental health services has increased by 22% between 2016 and 17 and 2021 and 22 while referrals for care have increased by 44% over the same period. Healthcare leaders warned there are 1.8 million people on the waiting list for NHS mental health care with hospital bosses “deeply concerned”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 21 July 2023
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Content ArticleHuge issues are facing the UK’s medical workforce: angst among staff, battles for training opportunities, a lack of basic amenities, discrimination, shortages of posts, roles with no career progression, and a failure to support workers asking for pay reviews. In this BMJ opinion piece, Partha Kar says we need fresh leadership to lead basic changes with support from the royal colleges and unions, and other external organisations need to step up now.
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Content ArticleThe Bucharest Declaration is the outcome of a World Health Organization (WHO) high-level regional meeting on health and care workforce in Europe that took place in Bucharest 22-23 March 2023. It makes 11 statements relating to the workforce crisis facing countries across Europe about retention, recruitment and staff safety.
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Content ArticleHealth and care workers in all parts of Europe are experiencing overwork, with high levels of burnout. This opinion piece in the BMJ looks at the issue of healthcare professionals leaving European health systems to take early retirement or work in other countries where pay and conditions are better. It highlights the causes of this exodus, including increasing patient complexity, salary erosion and work-life balance. It argues that policies should prioritise retaining existing staff, as increased training numbers offer only a partial, long term answer.to the crisis, highlighting potential approaches governments can take to retain highly qualified healthcare staff.
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Content Article
This is part of our series of Patient Safety Spotlight interviews, where we talk to people working for patient safety about their role and what motivates them. Stephen talks to us about his time as turnaround Chair of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, how NHS boards can ensure they live their values and why creating a safe space to share concerns improves patient safety.
