From April 1st 2014 it became a national requirement for all hospitals to publish information about staffing levels on wards, including the percentage of shifts meeting their agreed staffing levels. This initiative is part of the NHS response to the Francis report which called for greater openness and transparency in the health service.
So to get behind the headers one has to dig a little deeper.
If we look first at University Hospital of North Staffordshire (UHNS) found here
Selecting June’s statistics we can, if we look closely
enough, see the departments that did not reach the minimum safe staffing levels.
Difficult to see from this spreadsheet what is actually going on across the hospital but put into a 'traffic lights' system we can see more clearly how this hospital is performing in relation to their ward staffing:
Only 1 out of 41 wards had continuous levels of appropriate safe staffing over the month of June and worryingly the trend appears to be the majority of these wards are heavy reliant upon health care assistants. In one ward, 'critical care medicine', they only managed to reach an average day rate care of 52% of qualified staff - yikes !
Its not the only one however, we can take a look at several other hospitals and perform the same analysis.
Nottingham University Hospitals Trust:
Only 4 out of 47 wards achieving expected levels of safe staffing.
West Hertfordshire Hospitals Trust:
Only 3 out of 33 wards managing to have a consistent safe level of staffing throughout June.
It was difficult to carry out a full analysis of all hospitals as some hospitals presented their data rather differently and, in my opinion, a little less transparent than they ought to be, Central Manchester here, North Bristol here ...hmmm
Not surprisingly however I did find a Trust that had a good record on safe staffing, not 100% perfect, but better than the rest that I had seen, ironic given that this Government is hell bent in ensuring its demise.
Its not the only one however, we can take a look at several other hospitals and perform the same analysis.
Nottingham University Hospitals Trust:
Only 4 out of 47 wards achieving expected levels of safe staffing.
West Hertfordshire Hospitals Trust:
Only 3 out of 33 wards managing to have a consistent safe level of staffing throughout June.
It was difficult to carry out a full analysis of all hospitals as some hospitals presented their data rather differently and, in my opinion, a little less transparent than they ought to be, Central Manchester here, North Bristol here ...hmmm
Not surprisingly however I did find a Trust that had a good record on safe staffing, not 100% perfect, but better than the rest that I had seen, ironic given that this Government is hell bent in ensuring its demise.
Over to Midstaffordshire Foundation Trust (MSFT) found here
and again using the 'traffic lights'
A much healthier picture with only Orthopaedics at Cannock Chase failing to continuously meet safe staffing requirements.
Stafford has 9 out of 17 wards having continuous
safe staffing levels.
Comparing MSFT to UHNS; it would
be false to claim that the people of Stafford would be safer transferring to
UHNS for treatment as Stafford outperforms UHNS in safe staffing percentages.
Looking overall at the the 'safe staffing' tables of NHS trusts I can find no evidence of the so called "Francis Effect" nor any evidence that would suggest that this Government has invested in extra nurses. I have seen nursing staff ratios ranging from 1:8 right up to 1:13. What is clear is that hospitals do not have enough nursing staff and that the majority of hospital wards rely too heavily on health care assistants to deliver care - this of course puts a considerable strain on the front line and something that the Francis report highlighted as one of the main issues at Midstaffs - something this Government continues to ignore!
Looking overall at the the 'safe staffing' tables of NHS trusts I can find no evidence of the so called "Francis Effect" nor any evidence that would suggest that this Government has invested in extra nurses. I have seen nursing staff ratios ranging from 1:8 right up to 1:13. What is clear is that hospitals do not have enough nursing staff and that the majority of hospital wards rely too heavily on health care assistants to deliver care - this of course puts a considerable strain on the front line and something that the Francis report highlighted as one of the main issues at Midstaffs - something this Government continues to ignore!
