The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has launched an updated set of workforce standards, laying out expectations for nurse staffing in UK health and social care services.
At the college’s annual congress, held in Liverpool last week, the 2025 RCN Workforce Standards were published.
“Fewer nurses in health care settings leads to poorer patient outcomes”
Lynn Woolsey
The document, an update to the college’s inaugural standards created in 2021, makes demands for nurse-to-patient ratios above “critical” minimum levels, guaranteed continued professional development for nurses, among others.
The revised 14 standards cover three key themes: responsibility and accountability; clinical leadership and safety; and health, safety and wellbeing.
Changes from the 2021 version include a recommendation that a registered nurse lead on a particular shift should be supernumerary, meaning not counted in normal staffing numbers.
As well as this, the new version states that there should be a 27% minimum uplift on the nurse establishment to account for planned and unplanned absences.
It also warns that nurses should not be substituted with other healthcare professionals, including registered nursing associates and non-registered support workers.
The RCN said the standards could be used by frontline nursing staff at their workplaces to help “frame concerns” to managers, and by nurses higher up the chain as evidence for the case for change.
Lynn Woolsey, RCN chief nursing officer, said the existing standards were already being used to “challenge staffing and safety issues”, and that the revisions ensured they remained “relevant, useful and accessible”.
“We know that fewer nurses in healthcare settings leads to poorer patient outcomes,” said Ms Woolsey.
“That is why employers must take up our standards as a matter of urgency.”
More on the RCN and safe staffing
