Safe Staffing Ratios

Large group of nurses hold signs "Safe Staffing Saves Lives"

NNU’s proposal for minimum, mandated, nurse-to-patient staffing ratios protect our patients’ right to nursing care. We know that every patient deserves a single standard of high-quality care. Safe staffing ratios, coupled with nurses’ powerful voice of advocacy secured in collective bargaining, protect our patients from complications that arise from missed care such as medical errors, health care disparities, infections, and so much more. Read more »

Safe Staffing Saves Lives

Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act fact sheet

Read our fact sheet on legislation that would protect patients and improve health care by setting mandated, minimum, registered nurse-to-patient staffing ratios.

Group of nurses inside hospital hold sign "Staff Up for Sage Care"

RN Staffing Ratios: A Necessary Solution to the Patient Safety Crisis in U.S. Hospitals

NNU stands ready to help you bring ratios to your state. Read our booklet to learn more.

About safe staffing ratios

Group of nurses inside hospital hold signs "Safe Staffing Saves Lives"

Protecting Our Front Line: Ending the Shortage of Good Nursing Jobs and the Industry-created Unsafe Staffing Crisis

In this report, National Nurses United describes how the hospital industry has driven registered nurses from the bedside.

Graphic of recommended nurse to patient ratios by unit

The science of ratios

Decades of studies have shown that more nurses equate to lives saved and fewer complications. Researchers have been focusing on what exactly is the mediating link between increasing RN staffing and improved outcomes.

Learning from the California experience

In 1999, the registered nurses of the California Nurses Association successfully sponsored and lobbied the California Legislature to pass A.B. 394, the historic bill that made minimum, specific numerical staffing ratios the golden standard in the Golden State.

What does the California ratios law actually require?

The CNA-sponsored safe staffing law, has multiple provisions designed to remedy unsafe staffing in acute-care facilities.

RN Staffing Ratios Whitepaper

Learn more by reading NNU's staffing ratios whitepaper.

We need your help to get the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act passed to improve working conditions for nurses and to protect patients. Take action by urging your elected officials to support this critical legislation.

Videos

Safe staffing ratios protect patients and nurses

Safe RN ratios have been proven to improve the quality of care and nurse recruitment and retention in California hospitals.

California and beyond

California is the only state in the country that puts a legal limit on the number of patients a nurse can be made to care for at one time. National Nurses United fights for safe staffing ratios in our union contracts and for federal legislation for safe staffing ratios. 

All staffing ratios videos

Join our Safe Staffing Rapid Response Team to be part of a dedicated team of online volunteers. Members of the team will get first notice about developments and news regarding safe staffing  and will be ready to take action both online and in their communities.

Articles

Group of nurses by side of the road smiling, holding signs "No Cuts: A Healthy VA = Healthy Vets"

VA nurses across country fight for safe staffing, protest hiring freeze

Registered nurses who work at Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals around the country, from New York to Ohio to North Carolina to Florida, held a national week of action in August. The nurses are calling on the VA to lift what is in effect a hiring freeze that has contributed to more than tens of thousands of vacancies across the health system, including thousands of RN positions.
Nurses outside holding signs "VA Nurses: Protecting America's Heroes"

VA nurses speak out for safe staffing

This spring Veterans Administration nurses from Georgia to Ohio have been rallying, protesting, and picketing for patient safety and safe staffing.
Group of nurses standing outside in cold weather holding banner "Bedside Nurses Support Ratios"

Maine nurses press on for ratios bill

Maine nurses recently moved safe staffing legislation the farthest a state bill has progressed in the past 20 years. Pine Tree State RNs applauded the Maine Senate for passing L.D. 1639, The Maine Quality Care Act on March 27 but unfortunately did not make it to a vote in the House before the legislative session ended on April 17. Nurses vow to keep fighting for ratios.

Press releases

Large group of nurses standing outside hospital with raised fists, holding signs "Staff Up for Safe Patient Care"

San Jose nurses to hold rally for patient safety

Registered nurses who work at HCA’s Good Samaritan Hospital, in San Jose, Calif., will hold a rally on Wednesday, Oct. 30 to protest management’s failure to address chronic short-staffing and lack of meal and break relief.
Three nureses outside of hospital, smiling, fists raised, and holding signs "Safe Staffing Saves Lives"

Lodi nurses to hold informational picket for patient safety and safe staffing

Registered nurses at Adventist Health Lodi Memorial in Lodi, Calif., will hold an informational picket on Wednesday, Oct. 23, to call attention to hospital management’s failure to address recruitment and retention of staff nurses and its impact on patient care.
Lots of nurses holding signs, including a big banner "Don't mess with Texas nurses"

Corpus Christi nurses to hold informational picket for safe staffing, patient safety

Nurses from Corpus Christi Medical Center in Corpus Christi, Texas, will hold an informational picket on Aug. 12 to protest the administration’s refusal to address RNs’ deep concerns about safe staffing and patient care.
Five RNs at Mission Asheville holding signs "Nurses fighting for patients and safe staffing" "Mission nurses support safe staffing" "Patients over profits"

Asheville nurses to hold informational picket for safe staffing, patient safety

RNs at Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C., will hold an informational picket on August 6 to protest management’s refusal to address RNs’ deep concerns about safe staffing and patient care.
All staffing ratios press releases