Facts and passion, communicated by committed RNs, are needed to ensure health care is safe: British safe staffing authority

A combination of strong nursing leadership, a commitment to social justice and hard facts from a multitude of sources is needed to assure safe staffing levels in health care facilities, says a leading British research authority on safe health care.

But the evidence is unequivocal, said Jane Ball, RN, Principal Research Fellow in applied health research and care at the University of Southampton, and the evidence says clearly that “a ratio of more than eight patients per RN significantly increases the risk of harm and constitutes a break of patient safety.”

“This isn’t just a minimum,” she stated. “This is a danger zone. This is what unsafe looks like!”

Knowing this fact from research sources around the world, said the former deputy director of research at the National Nursing Research Unit of King’s College London, picking up on the metaphor used frequently at the 2014 UNA AGM, truly means “evidence can indeed be a superhero!”

“Evidence matters and the evidence is strong,” Ball said. It shows that “safe staffing saves lives, and it saves money.” It also shows, she said, “that it’s RN staffing that makes a difference whether RNs can get work done.”

“But this isn’t just statistics, this isn’t just analysis,” she added. “These are people dying – someone’s mom, daughter, somone’s husband – people who shouldn’t have died.”

Making sure that evidence is communicated, and understood, is where strong nursing leadership and the commitment to social values come in, said Ball. “Social justice isn’t granted by those in authority. It comes from people who care deeply … when they come together and say, ‘enough is enough.’”

Ball warned that the conditions that led to disasters like the Staffordshire hospital scandal in England in the late 2000s, sound like they are being replicated in health care in Alberta.

“We simply can’t afford not to have safe staffing,” she said.

 “And if people don’t speak up, that’s when you have another Staffordshire,” she concluded.

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