Employing more hospital nurses cuts deaths and saves twice as much money as it costs, a study reveals.
The odds of dying or being readmitted to hospital fell by 7 per cent for every fewer patient a nurse had under their care.
The smaller workload also led to a 3 per cent reduction in the length of each stay.
Researchers analysed data on 400,000 patients and 17,000 nurses at 55 hospitals in Queensland, Australia.
Half mandated a minimum of one nurse to four patients during the day and one nurse to seven patients at night. The others had no staffing ratio requirement.
The increased staffing prevented an estimated 145 deaths, 255 readmissions and 29,222 bed days in the 27 hospitals that increased staffing.
Each dollar spent on staffing saved $2.10 in readmissions and shorter stays – in addition to the patients’ lives.
Previous studies have shown increasing nurse numbers improves patient safety but officials have been slow to boost numbers.
Professor Patsy Yates, from Queensland University of Technology, said: ‘Part of the reluctance to bring in a minimum nurse-patient ratio mandate from some policy-makers is the expected rise in costs from increased staffing.
‘Our findings suggest that this is short-sighted. ‘Often, policy-makers are concerned about whether they can afford to implement such a policy.
‘We would encourage governments to look at these figures and consider if they can afford not to.’
In recent years, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland have mandated numbers of patients per nurse but there is no such restriction in England NHS England said it follows guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), which state: ‘Safe staffing is more complex than setting a single ratio.’
Nice said there are currently no plans to update the guidelines which were published in 2014.
Professor Matthew McHugh, from the University of Pennsylvania, in the United States, said: ‘Our findings plug a crucial data gap that has delayed a widespread roll-out of nurse staffing mandates.
‘Opponents of these policies often raise concerns that there is no clear evaluation of policy, so we hope that our data convinces people of the need for minimum nurse-to-patient ratios by clearly demonstrating that quality nursing is vital to patient safety and care.’
Nice defended its position, saying: ‘The emphasis should not just be on the available number of staff, it should be on delivering safe patient care and making sure that hospital management and nursing staff are absolutely clear on best practice to do this.
‘Safe staffing needs to be about ensuring you have the right staff, in the right place, at the right time, to give patients the care they need and deserve.
‘Patients’ needs differ from day to day and there is no single staff number that can be safely and adequately applied across the wide range of wards in the NHS.
‘The recommendations clearly set out the factors that should be taken into account to work out what is the adequate skill level and number of nursing staff required on that particular ward.’
Pat Cullen, General Secretary and Chief Executive at the Royal College of Nursing, said there are tens of thousands of unfilled nursing jobs in the UK.
She added: ‘Every time the nurse number drops, mortality increases – that’s how critical we are to safe patient care.
‘Accountability for workforce planning must be included in the forthcoming legislation for NHS and care services in England.’
The findings are published in The Lancet medical journal.