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Hospitals provide care for older people who are the frailest, most acutely ill and have the most complex needs, yet older people's wards in many hospitals are poorly staffed. The Royal College of Nursing (2012) has published summary guidance and recommendations on safe staffing for older people's wards. The guidance and recommendations were developed as part of a project that explored staffing and factors underpinning good quality nursing care for older people in hospital. The full report of the project will be published later this year. This article presents further data from the project exploring the relationship between staffing levels and care delivery, as well as staff views on the adequacy of staffing and approaches to workforce planning at ward level. It also explores the practical implications for nurses working on older people's wards.

The RCN's (2012) Principles of Nursing Practice are a set of statements about the characteristics of high quality nursing care. This article gives an overview of the principles and demonstrates through a personal reflection that emergency nurses can refer to them when planning and delivering compassionate and evidence-based care in complex settings.

This article presents the outline of a programme developed to support quality nursing care and provide professional development for staff nurses in a grade mixed, community nursing team. The initiative has been a joint venture between First Community Health NHS Trust and the University of Wolverhampton, School of Health Sciences, and shows the value of working together to establish a sound underpinning for practice.

This article aims to enlighten nurses working on surgical wards and in the operating theatre to give appropriate and quality nursing care to patients with sickle cell disease. The author considers patients who experience a vaso-occlusive crisis.