Care home staffing levels

The Home Office and contractors operating immigration removal centres must ensure that there is ongoing assessment of staffing levels (at least on a quarterly basis), so that the level of staff present within each centre is appropriate for the size and needs of the detained population. The Home Office must also ensure that the detained population does not...

Staffing should be based on service user needs rather than a fixed budget, using daily acuity measures designed specifically for units caring for people with learning disabilities. These should include enhanced supervision requirements, personal care support and therapeutic activities. Service managers should receive weekly reports of data of the staff hours needed per day per ward or facility....

Health Boards should ensure that the staffing and skills mix is appropriate for each ward, and that it is reviewed in response to increases in the level of activity/patient acuity.

Consideration of staffing (including skill mix as well as total numbers) should be a mandatory part of safeguarding investigations in all settings.

Station operations rooms shall always be adequately staffed by suitably trained personnel.

The NHS Litigation Authority should introduce requirements with regard to observance of the guidance to be produced in relation to staffing levels, and require trusts to have regard to evidence-based guidance and benchmarks where these exist and to demonstrate that effective risk assessments take place when changes to the numbers or skills of staff are under consideration. It...

The DoH must devise ways to recruit and retain more allied health professionals and social care staff in the community for autistic people and people with learning disabilities.

RQIA should consider developing a risk-based way of predicting which services are in difficulty. It is well known that certain aspects of services tend to be associated with abuse: service users who are vulnerable, who have few communication skills; service users with behaviour that challenges; services with poorly trained staff, insufficient staff, poor staff management, high sickness levels...

The General Medical Council's system of reviewing the acceptability of the provision of training by healthcare providers must include a review of the sufficiency of the numbers and skills of available staff for the provision of training and to ensure patient safety in the course of training.

The measures formulated by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence should include measures not only of clinical outcomes, but of the suitability and competence of staff, and the culture of organisations. The standard procedures and practice should include evidence-based tools for establishing what each service is likely to require as a minimum in terms of staff...

Contractors operating immigration removal centres must ensure that senior managers are regularly present and visible within the immigration removal centre and are accessible to more junior detention staff.