SAFE REGISTERED NURSE STAFFING ON HOSPITAL WARDS

That this House shares deep concern about occasions when patient safety has been compromised on acute hospital wards; believes that any cases of inexcusably poor nurse practice should be rooted out; notes however, that many reports on such cases provide compelling evidence of a link between the adequacy of registered nurse numbers and the quality of patient outcomes; supports the work of the Safe Staffing Alliance in highlighting the need for safe registered nurse staffing , that cases of poor staffing should be routinely reported and that hospital care should be underpinned by a fundamental standard where a limit of eight patients to each registered nurse, excluding the nurse in charge, should never be breached; further notes recent supportive comments by respected authorities including Robert Francis QC; and calls on the Government to introduce new benchmark standards of safe registered nurse staffing on hospital wards.