Safe staffing in our hospitals
We know that having the right staff with the right skills in the right place at the right time is essential to the delivery of safe, high-quality patient care.
That is why, following national guidance, we are publishing the planned and actual number of nursing and midwifery staff working on each ward, together with the percentage of shifts meeting safe staffing guidelines. Daily staffing levels can be found on boards at the entrance to each ward. Safe staffing isn’t just about the number of staff on the ward. It is also about the different skills and qualifications staff have. The type of illness or conditions on particular wards also needs to be thought about.
Senior nursing staff review and record our staffing levels at every shift to make sure we continue to provide the best care and treatment for our patients.
Following reviews of nurse and midwifery staffing reports to Board have confirmed that the Trust has an establishment that affirms safe staffing across ward areas.
How are we doing?
default Safer Staffing December 2022 (964 KB)
spreadsheet Safer Staffing November 2022 (963 KB)
Safer Staffing data - May-June 2019
Safer Staffing data - March-April 2019
spreadsheet Safer Staffing data - January 2019 (4.00 MB)
spreadsheet Safer Staffing Acuity - October 2018 (3.79 MB)
spreadsheet Safer Staffing Acuity - September 2018 (3.79 MB)
spreadsheet (934 KB) spreadsheet Safer Staffing Acuity - August 2018 (934 KB)
spreadsheet Safer Staffing Acuity - July 2018 (3.79 MB)
Safer Staffing Acuity - June 2018
Safer Nurse Staffing – January and February 2018
Inpatient Nursing Establishment Review Period February 1st - 28th 2018
Safer Nurse/Midwifery Staffing – June and July 2018 data
Report on Nurse Staffing Levels - August to September 2018
Report on Nursing and Midwifery Staffing Levels – October 2018
Report on Nursing and Midwifery Staffing Levels – November and December 2018
Report on Nursing and Midwifery Staffing Levels – January and February 2019
Bi-annual Patients’ Acuity and Dependency Winter Study - April 2019
Safer Staffing Triangulation
Safe staffing levels on their own do not inform us about the quality of the care our patients receive. In order to do this, we have to triangulate data. This means that we look at staffing levels with a number of other indicators of care quality (such as the number of falls) to see if there is any correlation between staffing levels and the incidence of events.
We report these at our Board Meetings on our Safer Staffing Dashboard. This accompanies the monthly report on daily staffing levels and the reasons why staffing might be under or over what was planned. This method of reporting was introduced in October 2014. The reports can be found in our Board papers.
We will also be reporting ‘red flag’ events - where there is a need to escalate through our internal procedures to senior staff that staffing in a particular area may need to be increased in order to make sure that we can give the highest quality care to patients. Further details of red flag events can be found in the NICE Guidelines.
Any questions?
Find out more about our safe staffing levels by reading these pdf FAQs (54 KB) .