Authors' objectives: NHS managers have to ensure that the numbers of staff on duty are appropriate to guarantee patient safety and high quality care. There are a number of workforce tools that can help do them this. Usually these are developed by looking at what happens in other services; what experts think is required; or by looking back to the care patients have needed in the past. These workforce tools predict the numbers and mix of nursing staff that should be needed. They may be of limited help in the real world where patients have changing needs; staff have different skills; staff sickness and other factors which make staffing difficult. We want to help managers to better use these workforce tools. Rather than collecting more data, we have an opportunity to identify what is currently known from the research already conducted. The new questions we want to answer from these studies are: - How do NHS managers use these tools? - How helpful are they in ensuring safe and high quality care? - What influences how helpful they are? - How can we help managers use them better? Our team are very experienced in using an approach to reviewing the literature called realist synthesis . Realist synthesis is one of a number of approaches to reviewing the literature. It is best suited to the questions we want to answer. For example, it is particularly helpful in identifying how and why things work, and what influences them in the real world. Our team includes researchers with expertise covering literature review methods, nursing, quality and safety, and management theory. We also have a member who is an NHS manager with practical experience of the issues. We will also work with two members of our patient and public involvement team. They will help us make sure that we address outcomes that are important to patients. We also want our PPI members to help us influence the public debate about the nursing workforce and patient safety. We have included plans to work closely with other interested parties and people (stakeholders) to make sure our findings are helpful and have impact. Our proposed review will be conducted in four phases over 18 months. Phase 1: We will develop an initial framework from the literature which identifies and links all the important issues that we need to consider. We will also engage with stakeholders in this work. The framework will help guide the focus of phase 2 and 3. Phase 2: We will then search several databases for research about nurse staffing tools. We will also look for project reports and other material which is relevant to our questions. There may be features we can learn from about workforce planning, and/or tools or technology used to make decisions. From the evidence that we identify we will extract key information. We will use this to generate statements that describe what works in terms of how NHS managers use nursing workload tools. Our main focus will be on nursing, but we will also include other public services where managers face similar challenges. Phase 3: We will present and test our findings in discussions with key stakeholders, and interviews with 20 NHS managers. We will also ask our PPI members to ensure the relevance of our findings for patients. Phase 4: We will make recommendations about how workforce tools should be implemented and used by NHS managers. We will also develop materials and resources to help them do this. We will do this in consultation with NHS managers

Project Status: Completed

URL for project: http://www.nets.nihr.ac.uk/projects/hsdr/1419420

Year Published: 2018

URL for published report: https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/programmes/hsdr/1419420/#/

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: England, United Kingdom

Organisation Name: NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research programme

Contact Address: NIHR Journals Library, National Institute for Health and Care Research, Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre, Alpha House, University of Southampton Science Park, Southampton SO16 7NS, UK

Contact Name: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk

Contact Email: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk

Copyright: Queen's Printer and Controller of HMSO