St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust publishes ward staffing data
St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust has published its staffing fill rates and safety data on the NHS Choices website this week*.
This is in accordance with a 2013 report produced by Jane Cummings, the Chief Nursing Officer for England, the National Quality Board and the Trust Development Authority.
Maintaining the safety of our patients is the absolute priority for the trust. Safe staffing is much more complex than an observation of percentages. It is about having the right staff, with the right skills, in the right place.
In February 2014 St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust received an overall rating of ‘Good’ from the Care Quality Commission (CQC). This demonstrates safe working within the trust and follows on from the trust’s previous top band 6 rating, which showed us as being least likely to be providing poor quality and/or unsafe care.
St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust has a safe staffing policy and a system for monitoring staffing levels. Nursing and midwifery leaders visit their clinical areas across the trust at least once a day to ensure safe staffing. Staff are encouraged to escalate concerns to the chief nurse. The acuity/dependency of patients is also monitored closely as this affects the type and amount of care needed. If concerns are raised about staffing levels, clinical leaders may make the decision move members of staff across the trust.
Our reported figures* suggest some wards have staffing levels above 100 per cent whilst other are below average. The reasons for this are varied. A ward reporting elevated fill rates may require more staff than they are profiled for. Possibly because the patients there are exceptionally unwell and require one to one nursing. A ward reporting decreased staffing rates may have beds closed for refurbishment meaning they do not require as many staff as predicted.
The trust fully supports an open reporting and transparency culture to enable the NHS to identify trends and implement preventative action. This will ensure all patients are informed to make the right choices on where to have their care.
Miles Scott, chief executive of St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust says:
“There is nothing more important than the safety of our patients and we welcome this week’s publication of figures which show that staffing levels are, on the whole, good across the trust.
“The Board is routinely updated on staffing and will act quickly when adjustments are required.
“St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust recently underwent a thorough inspection from the Care Quality Commission. We received an overall rating of ‘good’. This was based on unannounced visits, first-hand observations, interviews with patients, staff and stakeholders and a thorough review of our policies and procedures.”
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Notes to editors
For more information, please contact our press office on 020 8266 6128 or email our press officer Jay Stone jay.stone@stgeorges.nhs.uk
• *The staffing information we initially provided to NHS Choices at the beginning of June has since been updated to include day and night staffing level information. This detail can be accessed on the St George’s Hospital website.
• St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of the largest healthcare providers in the UK. Its main site, St George’s Hospital in London – one of the country’s principal teaching hospitals – is shared with St George’s, University of London, which trains medical students and carries out advanced medical research. As well as acute hospital services, the trust provides a wide variety of specialist and community hospital based care and a full range of community services to children, adults, older people and people with learning disabilities. These services are provided from Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, 11 health centres and clinics, schools and nurseries, patients’ homes and Wandsworth Prison.
• St George’s Hospital is currently one of twelve adult and children major trauma centres in the UK, one of eight hyper acute stroke units and one of the biggest and busiest of the seven heart attack centres in the capital.
• The trust is an accredited centre of excellence for trauma, neurology, cardiology, cancer and blood pressure services and is the national centre for family HIV care and bone marrow transplantation for non-cancer diseases.
