Nine out of 10 hospitals in England are reporting dangerous shortages of nurses with staff worried services could be “tipped over the edge”.
The figures show some hospitals have just one nurse for 22 patients fuelling fears of an NHS winter crisis.
The report found that 207 of the 225 acute hospitals in England have been unable to find enough nurses to staff their wards, a decline on last winter.
This comes after a parliamentary report warned a cap on immigration into the UK could be responsible for the nursing crisis in the NHS.A survey of almost 1,000 nurses in the Nursing Times also reveals growing strain, with more than half warning that low staffing levels mean that they can no longer guarantee safe care for their patients all of the time.
Full story at ITV 21 December 2015