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.

Join our fight for safe staffing

We need a national nurse-to-patient staffing ratios law now more than ever.

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

Veterans Affairs nurses have been speaking out about patient safety and the nurse staffing crisis throughout the VA, holding pickets, rallies, and other actions.
Nearly 2,000 registered nurses in Texas and Kansas at three Ascension hospitals held historic one-day strikes in June to protest management’s resistance to bargain in good faith with RNs for union contracts that would help correct the endemic staffing crisis.
Registered nurses with National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United joined labor allies on Oct. 3 at a legislative hearing to rebuke industry efforts to reduce staffing in health care systems and nursing homes.

Press releases

Maine nurses applaud the Maine Senate for passing LD 1639, The Maine Quality Care Act, today. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Stacy Brenner (D-Scarborough), passed (22-13) on a floor vote and now moves to the Maine State House of Representatives.
RNs at Dignity Health Community Hospital in San Bernardino, Calif., will hold an informational picket on Thursday, March 28, to protest the administration’s refusal to address their deep concerns about unsafe staffing.
RNs at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif., will hold a protest on March 27 to highlight their concerns about patient safety and chronic short staffing.
Registered nurses at John Muir Health, in Concord, Calif., will hold an informational picket to highlight their serious patient safety concerns, including staffing challenges and workplace violence issues.