Research interests
Peter’s core research programme addresses questions of safe and effective staffing, covering aspects of work organisation, shift patterns, skill mix and substitution. In addition to addressing patient safety, including the impact of nurse staffing levels on hospital mortality, his research also considers the economic outcomes of different workforce configurations as well as the impacts on ‘compassionate care’ and staff wellbeing.
In recent years, he has taken a particular interest in the studying the effect of staffing on omissions in care (missed care), in particular vital signs observations, and the role this can play in leading to adverse patient outcomes. He has also explored the relationship between shift patterns and care quality, costs and outcomes.
Working with colleagues at King’s College and beyond he has explored the long-term impacts of the ‘Productive Ward’ a lean based quality improvement programme that was implemented across the NHS. 2020 saw the commencement of the Magnet4Europe study – a cluster randomised controlled trial implementing principles of the Magnet® programme to improve staff wellbeing in European hospitals.
Research theme
Health Work
Research group
Health Workforce & Systems
Research project(s)
What is the best model for the allocation of nurses to patients in intensive care settings in England and how does it impact on patient, family, workforce and organisational outcomes?
This study seeks to understand how variation in the size and make-up of care teams on hospital wards in England influences patient outcomes and the costs of care.
The University of Southampton is involved in the largest ever project to improve hospital work environments, with an award of 4 million Euros from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme. The grant will support the international partnership with some of the world’s leading universities and is being led by Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.
Through a survey and case studies, this study will evaluate the extent to which safe staffing policies following the Francis Inquiry have been implemented, how that varies from place to place, the factors that have shaped implementation, and describe the costs & consequences of implementation.
The study examines how patients' need for nursing care, varies from day to day and explores how well staffing matches need when using the ‘Safer Nursing Care Tool’. We also simulate the costs and consequences of different ways of deploying nurses to meet varying need.
This retrospective observational study uses routinely collected data on ward and shift level nurse staffing, vital signs observations and patient outcomes in 32 general wards in order to explore the relationship between nurse staffing levels and mortality in hospital.
A mixed methods study to evaluate the feasibility of an intervention targeted at developing the relational capacity of hospital ward nursing teams. 2014-2016.
New hospital design includes more single room accommodation but there is scant and ambiguous evidence relating to the impact on patient safety and staff and patient experiences.
The ‘Productive Ward: Releasing Time to Care’™ programme was introduced in English NHS acute hospitals in 2007 to give ward staff the tools, skills and time needed to implement local improvements. Evidence of whether or not these goals were met and sustained is very limited.
This project sets out to identify how a national audit could be undertaken and what criteria should be audited.
This study, undertaken in collaboration with a large international consortium seeks to explore how the size and composition of the registered nursing workforce affects the quality of care in hospitals.
This study, undertaken in collaboration with partners in Canada, seeks to evaluate a nurse-led quality improvement programme which was developed in England by the NHS Institute for Improvement and innovation.
This is a feasibility study for an intervention aiming to make fundamental care in acute hospitals more person-centred. It pairs the Creating Learning Environments for Compassionate Care (CLECC) intervention with an adapted, co-produced version of the ‘TellUs’ card to support personalisation of fundamental care in hospital.
Determining safe and appropriate nurse staffing levels can be challenging and, for many years, decisions on nurse staffing in the Irish healthcare system were based on historical need and legacy issues rather than using a systematic, evidence based approach. This study evaluates the implementation of an evidence based Framework.
Taking measurements of heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and other vital signs is an important part of care for nearly all patients in hospital but we still need to find out how often we should monitor patients.
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