Inside the Blackbox: Nurses’ use of professional judgement in safe staffing systems in England and Wales: Insights from an ethnographic study

Collaboration: RCN Nurses in Management and Leadership Forum

Lower nursing levels corelate to poorer patient outcomes. Nurse staffing systems aim to there are enough nurses to care for patients. The Inside the Blackbox study found nursing staff’s professional judgement contributes to nursing staffing systems both at ward level based on local intelligence, and at a strategic level based on senior managers’ experience and knowledge of staff and organisational priorities.

The study highlights that nurses’ judgments do not carry the same weight when agreeing on staffing levels at board level. This may result in safe, but not quality patient care, which impacts nursing staff retention and shortages.

The session will look at how:

• the nursing workforce can use professional judgement to contribute to nurse staffing systems
• nursing staff can articulate their professional judgement in nurse staffing decisions
• current nurse staffing systems can be updated to reflect the current nursing workforce challenges within the UK today

This informative session is particularly aimed at strategic nursing and midwifery leaders within the NHS, operational nursing and midwifery leaders at band 7 through to executive nurse directors, and nursing staff at bands 5-7.