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Evaluating the Impact of Disruption to Nursing Rosters on Patient Care in Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust Hospitals (IDNRPC)
Safe People
Organisation name
Imperial College London
Organisation sector
Academic Institute
Applicant name(s)
Carol Propper
Funders/ Sponsors
Mary Wells
DEA accredited researcher?
Unknown
Sub-licence arrangements (if any)?
No
Safe Projects
Project ID
NIBDAPC_2024_0033
Lay summary
Our aim is to understand the improvements in inpatient outcomes, defined as mortality, length of stay, incidence of readmission, and falls brought about by an increase in the number of nurses on a hospital inpatient ward. We will also investigate which patients benefit most from an increase in nurse staffing, focusing on frailty and, for mortality, cause of death. Nurses are central to delivering higher quality patient care (i.e. care that improves the quality of life of patients). The UK – as many other countries – faces a shortage of nurses: vacancies are at a record level and recruitment is expensive and difficult. It is thus vital that this scarce and valuable resource is used in a way that most benefits patients. Nursing teams are composed of individuals with different qualifications and levels of seniority. Nurses on a ward form a team, composed of healthcare assistants, registered nurses of various bands, and are headed by a senior nurse. The questions this research will address are the following: Which types of nursing staff matter most for improvements in these patient outcomes? Do these effects vary across different types of ward or different types of patients? How much does nurse familiarity with the hospital, the ward or their colleagues, matter for the outcomes we study?
Public benefit statement
Nurses are central to delivering higher quality patient care. The UK – as many other countries – faces a shortage of nurses. Vacancies are at a record level and recruitment is expensive and difficult. It is thus vital that this scarce and valuable resource is used in a way that most benefits patients. The results of our study will provide evidence on the impact of a short-term absence of a nurse from a ward on patient mortality, falls and readmissions. We will examine the effect of the absence of nurses of different grades and familiarity with the hospital, the ward and their colleagues. The results from our analysis will enable us to know whether the patient outcomes we study can be improved by using more staff, or by using staff in different ways – for example, by ensuring that individuals who are familiar with each other work more frequently with each other. Our research is intended to help Trust Managers in their decisions on how nursing staff are allocated to shifts and to identify ahead of time when the adverse events we study might be most likely to happen, thus enabling those who design staffing rosters to take actions to reduce the likelihood that these adverse events occur.
Request category type
Public Health Research
Other approval committees
Project start date
15/08/2024
Latest approval date
12/06/2024
Safe Data
Dataset(s) name
ICHT Business School Data Model
Data sensitivity level
De-Personalised
Common Law Duty of Confidentiality
Not applicable
National data opt-out applied?
Not applicable
Request frequency
One-off
Release/Access date
15/08/2024
Safe Setting
Access type
TRE