NICE 12 May 2014
- This guideline makes recommendations on safe staffing for nursing in adult inpatient wards in acute hospitals. It guideline does not cover nursing workforce planning or recruitment at regional or national levels in intensive care, maternity and mental health wards, day units and assessment or admission units.
- "There is no single nursing staff to patient ratio that can be applied across the wide range of wards to safely or adequately meet the nursing care needs of patients. This guideline therefore recommends the factors that need to be systematically assessed at ward level when determining nursing staff requirements, with the nursing care needs of individual patients being the main driver. These factors should then be used in a staged approach to set safe nursing staff requirements throughout a 24-hour period." p7
- The report describes the types of ongoing nursing care activities that change nursing staff requirements.
