Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that hospital wards provide sufficient (a) personal and (b) nursing care to patients; and if he will make a statement.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre workforce statistics for November 2014 shows there has been an increase of nearly 8,500 more nurses working on hospital wards than in 2010.

Through the Mandate, we have asked NHS England to deliver continued improvements in relation to the experience of care. Local healthcare organisations, with their knowledge of the people they serve, are best placed to plan and employ a workforce based on clinical need and sound evidence.

In November 2013, the National Quality Board (NQB) supported by Jane Cummings, the Chief Nursing Officer for England, published guidance on How to ensure the right people, with the right skills, are in the right place at the right time. The guidance specifies that the skill mix of the workforce should reflect the patient care needs and local requirements, considering the experience and capabilities of the workforce employed.

NHS England introduced mandatory reporting of monthly actual and planned nursing and midwifery staffing levels by hospital wards in May 2014. All trusts with inpatient beds are required to publish their staffing fill rates (actual versus planned) in hours on the NHS Choices website. In addition, all inpatient ward areas must display ward / department level information shift by shift regarding the planned versus actual staffing levels at the entrance to the clinical area.

To support trusts further, the Department commissioned the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to produce independent and authoritative evidence based safe staffing guidance, Safe Staffing for Nursing in Adult In-Patient Wards in Acute Hospital’, published in July 2014. The guidance makes recommendations on safe staffing for registered nurses and healthcare assistants, and identifies indicators that should be used by trusts to demonstrate safe and effective nursing care is being provided. Assessment of patients' nursing needs should take into account individual preferences and the need for holistic care and patient contact time.

Directors of nursing are required to take into account the NQB and NICE staffing guidance, as well as Compassion in Practice, the nursing vision and strategy launched by the Department and NHS England in 2012, to ensure the delivery of person centred care and improve health outcomes.

National Health Service trust boards are required to scrutinise and sign-off staffing reports, and these staffing decisions will then be subject to external scrutiny and challenge by commissioners, regulators and the public, and inspection by the Chief Inspector of Hospitals.