The BMJ just published ‘Missed nursing care in newborn units’, a study on the effects of nursing shortages on delivery of neonatal care in low/middle-income countries.

Nurses are essential to the delivery of safe and effective care, but nurse shortages and high patient workloads may result in missed care.

The study examines nursing care delivered to sick newborns in six health facilities in Nairobi, Kenya, and identifies missed care using direct observational methods.

The study finds that a significant proportion of nursing care is missed with potentially serious effects on patient safety and outcomes in this LMIC setting and that given that nurses caring for fewer babies on average performed more of the expected tasks, addressing nursing is key to ensuring delivery of essential aspects of care as part of improving quality and safety.

Human Resources for Health published a study on task shifting for nurses as a strategy to address issues of heavy workloads, insufficient staffing and regular emergencies which compromise the ability of nurses to provide quality care. The study looks at the nature and practice of neonatal nursing in three newborn units in three public hospitals in Nairobi county, Kenya, so as to determine what prospect there might be for relieving pressure by shifting nurses’ work to others.

It finds that nurses have developed a ritualized schedule and a form of ‘subconscious triage’ to cope with difficult work conditions characterized by resource challenges and competing priorities. The study concludes that this organic form of task shifting could inform more formal task-shifting projects as a way to support and work with busy nurses.

Read the study

Photo: A Senior Nurse Officer assists Linnet Daniel to breastfeed her newborn baby in a postnatal ward at Mukuru Health Centre, Kenya, in September 2016. ©UNICEF/Noorani.