A study has found that heavy reliance on temporary nursing staff in medical and surgical wards was associated with increased hazard of death.
The study, published in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship, found a 12% increase in the hazard of death where patients received greater than 1.5 hours of care per day from a temporary registered nurse.
Similar patterns were observed where the replacement was a nursing assistant, albeit the risk was found at just half an hour per day of care from a nursing assistant.
The authors stated that the study raised “the potential consequences of nurse staffing shortages if hospitals have to resort to heavy reliance on temporary staff.”
The study “[calls] into question flexible staffing policies that rely substantially on temporary staff to meet variable patient need”, they concluded.
The longitudinal study was conducted between 2012 and 2015 at hospitals in the south of England. They studied 32 medical and surgical units, and covered over 800 beds.
However, the study maintains clinical relevance in Australia, where many facilities are reliant on temporary casual and agency staff to make up nursing numbers, rather than hiring more permanent staff. This is issue is more prevalent in private sector settings.
The study also highlights the risk of using nursing assistants to replace registered nurses in clinical settings.
The study found that there was “no evidence” of harm associated with the moderate use of temporary staff, particularly where it was used to ensure adequate staffing number.
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