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Data relating to patterns of nursing activity and all the interactions occurring between patients and nursing staff were obtained during observation periods of 1 week's duration on a total of 20 wards in three hospitals. When analysed 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.

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 wider 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.

After collecting a large number of performance rating assessments in order to enable a set of rating films to be used for training purposes it was decided to analyse the results. This analysis shows that the basic limitations of the rating process still exist and the article discusses two of these in detail. Flatness is seen to be even more pronounced than had heretofore been acknowledged and the variability in concept of standard is seen to be approximately half explained by differences between companies and half by differences between observers within the same company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the work reported here began at health district level, even a casual perusal of published statistics reveals a quite bizarre situation when viewed from a manpower planning perspective. The quite considerable effort involved in producing state-certified midwives seems, on the surface at least, to be excessive given the number gainfully employed in that profession. The national situation with respect to trends in the birth rate is examined and a somewhat surprising seasonal effect identified. This material is then used to estimate the likely situation to be encountered at local level and in particular the effect at different levels of bed provision. In an attempt to translate these estimated births into workload figures recourse was made to regression analysis. Data from 417 maternity units relating both to outputs and inputs were secured, but the subsequent analysis proved abortive due to the high correlation which exists between the variables. Estimates were therefore derived from the work of other authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]