Safe Staffing
Safe Staffing levels are at the cornerstone of providing high quality patient care. NHS England provides guidance to support NHS Trusts in ensuring that the right people, with the right skills, are in the right place at the right time.
At Whittington Health we are committed to ensuring that levels of registered and unregistered staff, match the acuity and dependency needs of patients within clinical areas to provide safe and effective care.
There is a requirement for all Trusts with in-patient beds to publish their staff fill rates (actual versus planned) in hours. This information appears on this page and patients, and the public are now able to see how we are performing on these indicators.
Daily Assessments
Daily staffing status is identified at the safe staffing meetings and those present will agree next steps to address shortfalls, promote safe staffing and maintain patient and staff safety.
The site managers and the on-call manager conduct these assessments for out of hours and weekend shifts. Day to day nursing staffing information is also accessible on the “staffing boards” on each clinical setting, indicating planned and actual staffing levels for every shift.
Monthly Assessments
Each month we publish a summary of the planned and actual numbers of nursing staff who were on duty on each ward.
A Safe Staffing Governance Group that is consisted of senior clinical leads, meet once a month to review the compliance of each clinical setting with the safe staffing and rostering Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Remedial actions are discussed and monitored monthly.
Nursing and Midwifery Establishment Reviews
Twice a year, we review the number of registered and unregistered nursing staff on all our wards and other clinical services. In order to conduct the establishment assessments, we use evidence-based tools that are recommended by NHS England and compare our staffing levels with hospitals and services of similar size and type.
National guidance is taken into consideration. The process and recommendations for optimum and efficient staffing levels are presented at the Trust Board.
The latest Nursing and Midwifery Establishment report shared with the Trust Board is available for public viewing.
The latest Nursing and Midwifery Establishment report shared with the Trust Board is available for public viewing.
Last updated18 Oct 2024