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Staff Benchmarking

Staff Benchmarking. Does this add value and should we pursue this more widely? Francis Thompson West London Mental Health Trust. National context. NHS Constitution, NHS Act and one of the six essential CQC standards place a duty on Trusts to ensure that staffing levels are adequate;

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Staff Benchmarking

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  1. Staff Benchmarking Does this add value and should we pursue this more widely? Francis Thompson West London Mental Health Trust

  2. National context • NHS Constitution, NHS Act and one of the six essential CQC standards place a duty on Trusts to ensure that staffing levels are adequate; • Francis (no not me); • Prime Minister’s commission; • The Centre for Social Justice (2011) argue that all acute inpatient wards should be seen as specialist areas and staffed accordingly; • Increasing acuity (HTT); • The Royal College of Nursing (2007) survey RMN’s showed that two thirds deemed inpatient staffing to be too low and 42% felt that staffing levels compromised patient care at least once per week.

  3. Local Context - Lack of easily identifiable information at a Trust level and concerns re acute unit staffing; - Concerns re differences in staffing between units; - CQC concerns; - Lack of clarity regarding safe staffing levels and lack of a recognised way to measure staffing needs; - Context of financial savings.

  4. What we did and some caveats “Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.”

  5. Trust data

  6. Staffing data admission and recovery wards

  7. Local comparisons recovery wards

  8. Points to note • Disparities noted between wards inside Trusts in both the areas I have carried out this work; • Particular differences noted in availability of 9-5 staff; • Need to include other available resources for a robust comparison e.g. OT resource etc and this is not easy to gather; • It did enable a high level discussion on staffing and noted some other local interesting points…..

  9. Potential benefits • Provides some assurance regarding staffing levels locally and compared to other Trusts; • Good intelligence to support workforce planning; • Lever to raise quality issues and argue for budget protection/enhancement; • May improve patient care/experience if numbers felt to be below par; • Raises unit staffing to board level; • Opportune time given national drivers.

  10. Risks • Biggest risk - no benchmark to measure against – what if we are all too high or low??; • May be inadvertently be used as quality measure; • Crude - difficult to compare units in different contexts and areas; • If not done carefully may isolate nursing numbers from other MDT input; • Complexity of data collection and peripherals such as bleep holders; • Data may be felt to be sensitive by Trusts; • Financial implications of having comparatively lower staffing; • Can the numbers influence change? • Constant flux and change – this will only ever be a snapshot.

  11. Points for discussion • Given the risk, benefits and complexity is this worth pursuing? • If so is this better done locally or more broadly? • What could be done with the outcomes? Would this lead to rigidity? • If this is pursued it would only be a snapshot and timeframes and shared data tool would need to be developed.

  12. Any more thoughts, comments or questions? • Any more?

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