6. What the current (a) highest, (b) lowest and (c) mean average registered nurse-to-patient ratio is on acute hospital wards. (900588)

As my hon. Friend is aware, we do not hold information on registered nurse-to-patient ratios on acute hospital wards. Local hospitals must have the freedom to decide the skill mix of their work force and the number of staff they employ to deliver high-quality, safe patient care.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Government should be monitoring the situation, but he will be aware of the concern, which I have consistently highlighted, about inadequate registered nurse ratios in acute hospital wards, and of the Health Committee’s report into the Francis inquiry, which made recommendations in that regard. In inspecting hospitals, what objective measure should the Care Quality Commission use when looking at safe staffing levels on acute hospital wards?

The CQC is working with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and NHS England to devise tools to do exactly that. As my hon. Friend will be aware, the number of front-line staff required, whether nurses or doctors, to look after a patient who is in a cardiac intensive care unit will differ from the number required in a rehabilitation setting. The tools that the chief inspector of hospitals will be able to apply are being developed.

Why do the Government continue to set their face against the essential recommendation of the Francis inquiry on minimum staffing levels?

The simple reason, as the right hon. Gentleman will be aware from his time at the Department of Health, is that ticking boxes on minimum staffing levels does not equate to good care. It can sometimes lead to a drive to the bottom, rather than to addressing the needs of the patients whom the front-line staff are looking after. The Berwick review has borne that out clearly. It is important to consider the patients and the skills mix on the ward, and to ensure that we get things right on the day for the individual needs of the patients.

Will my hon. Friend ask the chief inspector to ensure that by the bed of every in-patient there is the name of the nurse and the doctor responsible, so that nobody gets lost in hospitals again?

I am very sympathetic to the point made by my hon. Friend. The chief inspector has indicated that he will look at how individual wards are run on a granular level to ensure there is the right skills mix to look after patients on any particular day, with proper accountability for patient care.

The chief inspector of hospitals says he will monitor levels of unanswered call bells, but not the ward staffing levels that cause the bells to be unanswered. Is that not ridiculous? Is it not time that Ministers changed their minds on this important issue, as Robert Francis has now done?

As the hon. Lady will be aware, on the basis of the Francis report the Berwick review considered that issue in detail and highlighted the fact that safe staffing levels are not about ticking a box for minimum staffing, but about developing tools that recognise the individual needs of patients on the ward. The previous Government went down the route of tick-boxes in health care. I worked on the front line during that time and that route did not deliver high-quality care. We need the right tools to support front-line staff so that they make the right decisions in looking after patients. It is not about tick-boxes; it is about good care.