Can cash-strapped health boards afford to ignore safe staffing levels?

摘要

Former health minister for Wales Lesley Griffiths announced last month that an acuity tool, allowing sisters and charge nurses to determine safe staffing levels on their wards, would be available by next year. But critics say this is not enough to address the increasing problem of undignified care caused by ongoing cost-cutting. The Safer Nursing Care Tool, expected to be implemented in 2014, will offer ward leaders the option of assessing the severity of patients' conditions, whether they are likely to deteriorate and what their ongoing needs will be.