Are people dropping like flies . . .

I am a staff nurse in a hospital in the UK.  Things have really deteriorated very recently.  I often see people die here that would have lived had they been in the USA.  I really think that the difference  with the US system is better staff to patient ratios in hospital.  On an acute medical/ surgical ward in the USA, it would be 1 nurse to 8 patients tops.  If nurse got ill at work and went off sick they would replace her with agency staff or something so that another RN would not have to take the sick nurses 8 patients in addition to her own.  Once you exceed the one nurse to 8 patient ratio bad stuff happens. 

My experience in the UK has been one RN to at least 15 patients on a 30 bedded ward with acutely ill people.   If the nurse for the other 15 patients becomes ill (or goes into premature labour as one of my nurses did the other day)  the first nurse has to pick up an additional 15 patients.  That makes it impossible to do your job rate when all 30 of those people need almost 1:1 care.    The managers are hellbent against paying for extra staff or bringing agency nurses in.  They want to cram as many patients in with as few staff as possible.  $$$$$.   This kind of crap puts patients lives in jeopardy.   My opinion was the it was a bit stricter in the USA.

That has just been my experience though  and my trust is notorious for being one of the worst.  I don't know what the situation is at other hospitals in the UK. 

I do know that the problems with insurance in the USA puts people at risk as well so I really don't know what the answer is anymore.

wish I can say that the staff ratio is superb across the US but the hospitals that I've worked in depending on their retention of health care staff is just as bad if not worse in some US hospitals. I worked in a few hospitals in Norfolk and some had a nice staff to patient ratio and the smaller ones had 1 nurse per 8 patients or more problem.


My experience both in the UK and US have been mixed I just put it down resources  ie: staff that give a damn (and are competent at what they do) , funding allocated accordingly and how the area is as well as how allocated or adequately proportioned are the health resources among the population.

I was an LPN back home, worked night shift where we would have 1 RN, 2 LPNs and 2-4 NAs for 45 patients.  Half of the ward was general medicine, other half cardiac rehab (patients coming out of CCU came up here), so it could be a very busy ward.  Day shifts weren't much better, they might have 2 RNs and 3 LPNs.  Here, I'm a nursing student (adult branch) and so far on my placements the staffing levels haven't been too bad.  At the moment I'm working on a trauma orthopaedic ward and there is usually 1 qualified nurse and 2 NA for 6 or 7 patients, if someone calls in sick at the last minute and its not possible for the bank or an agency to supply extra help, then we might have 1 RN for 12 patients and 1 RN will be ward co-ordinator, this seems to work quite well. 

We have a pretty good Trust here in the southwest, so like others have said, it just depends on where you live.

See I was talking about this with a nurse on another forum recently and I really REALLY need to find another job.  We are a 30 bed acute medical ward with some high dependency patients.  Most patients require total care, multiple drips, IV insulin sliding scale etc etc.  We 1-2 RN's for 30 patients and 1 to 2 care assistants on a day shift.  No ward clerk.  That's it as far as staffing.   No more than 2 RN's and 2 care assistants ever.  If someone calls out sick we work with 3 staff. 

I think you are right when you say it depends on where people live.  That is why so many people love the NHS and so many others are fed up.