A tool to calculate safe nurse staffing levels

Fenton K, Casey A (2015) A tool to calculate safe nurse staffing levels. Nursing Times; 111: 3, 12-14.

A guideline from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and a NICEendorsed tool on safer nursing care allow decisions on safe staffing levels to be made at a local level. Decisions must be based on sound evidence and factoring in patients’ individual needs as well as numbers of patients.

The Safer Nursing Care Tool helps nurses decide on safe nurse staffing for acute wards based on patients’ level of sickness and dependency. It also includes quality indicators linked to nursing care to help ensure staffing levels achieve best patient care. The tool is easy to use by frontline nursing staff, but must be applied correctly and consistently for data to be valid, and to allow benchmarking against agreed standards. It should be combined with nurses’ professional judgement and account for local factors.

Growing evidence on the link between nurse staffing levels and the quality of care has led to the development of a tool and guidance to calculate safe staffing levels

In this article…

> The importance of appropriate nurse numbers and skill mix

> Developing a tool to aid local calculation of safe staffing levels

> Examples of the tool in use