Bristol Children’s Hospital’s emergency department (ED) is “significantly” understaffed and needs to almost double its number of permanent health workers, bosses have warned. The hospital’s Seahorse intensive care unit and Weston General Hospital A&E are also in need of more registered nurses, nursing assistants and healthcare support workers, a meeting of University Hospitals Bristol & Weston NHS Trust’s (UHBW’s) board was told.
UHBW insists employee levels at the three departments are safe and that it is using agency staff to fill the gap on a temporary basis. A biannual report called “Safe Staffing for nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals” said the trust had assessed how many of each permanent role it should have in all wards, using a nationally approved method called the safer nursing care tool (SNCT).
It said: “The SNCT results for children’s ED demonstrated significant staffing gaps across the department. This was supported by the consistent level of low staffing incidents reported for this area.
