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Following on a long series of interviews and pilot studies a substantial questionnaire was devised for soliciting the reactions of patients to their stay in hospital. With the cooperation of health authorities it was distributed to ex-patients in seven acute hospitals. A total of 1357 respondents returned a completed questionnaire. In this paper the responses to some 17% of the questions are presented. Most of these particular questions have been selected because they are concerned with nursing issues but a few others are included on account of their relevance. What comes across very clearly from the pattern of responses are the wide disparities between hospitals. Given that the questions were deliberately intended to be very specific a comparison of the results obtained in one institution with the overall averages does enable attention to be focused on areas where improvements are called for. In fact a number of health authorities, recognizing this feature, have since commissioned studies.

Data relating to patterns of nursing activity and all the interactions occurring between patients and nursing staff were obtained during observation periods of i week's duration on a total of 20 wards in three hospitals. When analyzed these data reveal that in all wards there is a strong relationship between the nursing hours available and the various components of the nursing care provided. Indeed the linear relationship is so strong in some cases that it appears that these wards are a long way short of the staffing levels which produced the 'saturation' effect described by several American authors. The analysis of the interactions reveals, as one would suspect, that a disproportionate number of patients account for a large proportion of the interactions, but two further analyses will, it is hoped, shed a little more light on this aspect of the ward situation. The data are being subject to further examination to ascertain whether extra nursing staff leads to more or longer interactions and a longer term investigation is under way which is focused on patients with comparable diagnoses in different hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major study was undertaken in three acute hospitals of how nursing staff occupied their time on the medical, surgical and orthopaedic wards, the observation technique adopted being systematic activity sampling. In addition all the interactions patients received from nurses were recorded, the categorization scheme for both sets of data being identical. This paper presents the overall results which emerged from the computer analysis of this material. One of the less expected results is the amount of nursing performed which is categorized as Basic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (UKCC) recently undertook a major project aimed at identifying the most appropriate future nurse staffing patterns. The results presented here were produced at the request of the UKCC in order that the recommendations stemming from their deliberations could be set against a wide backcloth. It proved possible to secure nurse staffing data from three of the countries of the United Kingdom, namely, England, Wales and Scotland. Most were secured from government publications but the appropriate government agencies also provided valuable assistance. The main trends emerging from a processing of the data are a steadily falling ratio of student nurses and midwives to their qualified counterparts and a steadily increasing contribution by state enrolled nurses. A number of other ratios are presented pictorially accompanied, where appropriate, by a commentary. The actual growth in whole time equivalent nurses is seen to be somewhat less than many people imagine when account is taken of the reduction in both the number of weeks and the number of hours per week worked. Indeed, there has been a levelling off of this last figure over the past few years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]