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“A laudable attempt to justify numbers”—Robert Francis, chair, Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry
The Royal College of Physicians’ approach to quantifying safe staffing is “encouraging,” says Francis. “Work like this is extremely welcome because since Mid Staffs I’ve been keen to see some staffing standards which might assure patients and the public that wards are safely staffed.”
What has been done to date has lacked hard figures, he says. “The challenge has always been to find an evidence base to justify any numbers for staff-patient ratios and so on,” he adds. “This does seem to me to be a laudable attempt to do that, at least for the medical team.”
He says the test is for a non-executive director of a trust to be able to judge how its staffing needs have been calculated. “It’s something that’s been conspicuously absent in the nursing field.”
Francis is disappointed not to see patient involvement in the RCP’s report. “I would have thought that it would have been useful to look at or hear some experience of what patients think is necessary in order for them to feel safe.” This could be included in the audits that the RCP has urged trusts to carry out on its recommendations, he suggests.
The RCP’s recommendations now need to be “drawn together” with the work that has been done on safe nursing staffing, Francis says, “so that you have an overall pattern of what is needed in the ward. It’s not just about doctors; it’s about the combination of a team.”
He adds, “The question is, what happens now: is this something that the CQC should be relying...