Pay rise 'a political issue' as review body ignored

The government is refusing to revisit its decision to deny 70 per cent of nurses a 1 per cent cost of living pay rise next April - despite the looming threat of industrial action by a number of health unions.

Immigration rules could hit hard

Directors of nursing are warning the government that its policy of not allowing some foreign nurses to work in the UK if they earn less than £35,000 will create serious staffing shortages.

Intended and unintended consequences of minimum staffing standards for nursing homes

Staffing is the dominant input in the production of nursing home services. Because of concerns about understaffing in many US nursing homes, a number of states have adopted minimum staffing standards. Focusing on policy changes in California and Ohio, this paper examined the effects of minimum nursing hours per resident day regulations on nursing home staffing levels and care quality. Panel data analyses of facility-level nursing inputs and quality revealed that minimum staffing standards increased total nursing hours per resident day by 5% on average. However, because the minimum staffing standards treated all direct care staff uniformly and ignored indirect care staff, the regulation had the unintended consequences of both lowering the direct care nursing skill mix (i.e., fewer professional nurses relative to nurse aides) and reducing the absolute level of indirect care staff. Overall, the staffing regulations led to a reduction in severe deficiency citations and improvement in certain health conditions that required intensive nursing care.

Hunt's schedule for cutting agency spend is too ambitious, warn unions

Unions have cast doubt on the timetable set by the Department of Health for reducing the use of agency nurses.

Is the NHS ripped off by agencies or its own workforce planning?

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt pitted the NHS against 'rip-off staffing agencies' last week in a bid to save the health service millions of pounds.