Safer Nursing Care Tool

The safer nursing care tool (SNCT) is a workforce tool designed to help users determine the level of nursing staff needed to provide safe patient care and adequately meet patients’ needs.

The tool measures patient acuity, dependency and other factors to determine the total number of nurses at a ward level. SNCT has been approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and is used by regulators to measure trusts against when making judgements about safe staffing in Key Lines of Enquiry.

Healthcare leaders can complete the Chief Nursing Officer Safer Staffing Fellowship Programme to become experts in safe staffing and support embedding a sustainable, consistent approach to safer staffing in the NHS.