Staff cutbacks linked to death rates, study finds

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Study

• A recent study has found that nursing cutbacks are directly linked to higher patient death rates in hospitals across European hospitals in nine countries

• The study, which combined data from 300 European hospitals, says every additional patient for a nurse increases the risk of death within a month of surgery by 7%

• It does not get any better when poorly qualified nurses are employed, a stark contrast to the times when nurses had university degrees

Patients vs Nurses• The study, published in the Lancet journal, showed

that on average, every one nurse in English hospitals looked after nine patients on average

• In other countries, this ratio was much smaller. Norway had a patient-to-nurse ratio of 5.2 while Ireland had 6.9, Netherlands 7 and Sweden 7.6

• On the high end of the spectrum, Spain had the most overworked staff, with an average of 12.7 patients per nurse

• Spain's nurses were way more qualified as each one of them had a bachelor degree compared to only 28% in England

Patients vs Nurses

• US expert Professor Linda Aiken, from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, who led the research, said

• “Our findings emphasize the risk to patients that could emerge in response to nurse staffing cuts under recent austerity measures, and suggest that an increased emphasis on bachelor’s education for nurses could reduce hospital deaths”

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