Evidence-based tool which enables nursing staff to assess the acuity and dependency of Children and Young People (C&YP) to support establishment setting

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The Children and Young People’s Safer Nursing Care Tool (C&YP SNCT) is built on the principles of the original Safer Nursing Care Tool for adult inpatient wards which was developed in 2006 and updated in 2013. It has been developed to help NHS hospitals make evidence-based decisions on staffing in Children and Young People’s inpatient wards in line with the NQB’s expectations using patient acuity and dependency to inform these decisions.

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The Children and Young People’s Safer Nursing Care Tool ( C&YP SNCT) completed validation in early 2018 and it is now available for licence.      

• Decision support tool, developed by the Shelford Group

• Evidence-based: tested in teaching and district general hospitals in England, to confirm tool is robust and easy to use

• Aligned to a staffing multiplier (whole time equivalent (WTE) nurse staffing) to provide a recommended establishment based on the actual needs of the patients

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Appropriate for use in any acute children and young people inpatient wards in acute and childrens hospitals within England (although further work is underway to adapt the tool for use in other clinical setting and other countries).

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Used in conjunction with Nurse Sensitive Indicators (NSIs); patient and staff outcomes that can be linked to nurse staffing such as patient falls and pressure ulcer incidence.

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Able to support benchmarking activity in organisations when used across Trusts. This will guide consistent decision making in setting safe and sustainable nurse establishments in line with agreed standards across similar care settings in England.