- 09/04/2018
- Posted by: Mike Hedges MS
- Category: Press Releases
Mike Hedges AM welcomes the Nurse Staffing Act which will be implemented from 6th April
The Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act will be implemented in full from 6th April 2018, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services announced.
Mike Hedges AM said…. ‘I am pleased that this Act is now in force. It will a set new standard for Welsh Hospitals, where there will be minimum numbers of nurses required to be on duty. This will give reassurance to patients and their families. It is a sign of the Wales Labour Government’s commitment to continue to raise the standard of patient care within the Welsh NHS.
The Act places a duty on health boards and NHS Trusts to take steps to calculate and maintain nurse staffing levels in adult acute medical and surgical inpatient wards, as well as a broader duty to consider how many nurses are necessary to provide care for patients sensitively in all settings.
It also ensures that the NHS more widely recognises the professional judgement of nurses in identifying the needs of their patients, and supports nurses from ward to board to have the necessary and sometimes difficult conversations about the resource needs of their patients based on those needs.
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