Introducing the Professional Judgement Framework to guide nurse staffing decisions

Working out how many nursing staff are needed to provide safe care on a hospital ward is complicated, as many factors affect the amount of work. Many tools are available to help estimate the work and the staff needed, but no single tool captures everything, meaning that using professional judgement remains important. Nonetheless, numbers of nursing staff generated by tools may be trusted more than decisions based on professional judgement, which can be seen as too subjective. Providing a framework to help guide new managers in using professional judgement and to help experienced managers justify their thinking may help overcome this challenge.This Evidence Brief describes the development of a Professional Judgement Framework to guide nurse staffing decisions, based on our safe staffing research and nurse workforce expert guidance.