Safe RN-to-Patient Staffing Ratios

Large group of nurses hold signs "Safe Staffing Saves Lives"

NNU’s proposal for minimum, mandated, nurse-to-patient staffing ratios protect our patients’ right to nursing care. We know that every patient deserves a single standard of high-quality care. Safe staffing ratios, coupled with nurses’ powerful voice of advocacy secured in collective bargaining, protect our patients from complications that arise from missed care such as medical errors, health care disparities, infections, and so much more. Read more »

Group of nurses inside hospital hold sign "Staff Up for Sage Care"

RN Staffing Ratios: A Necessary Solution to the Patient Safety Crisis in U.S. Hospitals

NNU stands ready to help you bring ratios to your state. Read our booklet to learn more.

Safe Staffing Saves Lives

Protecting Our Front Line: Ending the Shortage of Good Nursing Jobs and the Industry-created Unsafe Staffing Crisis

In this report, National Nurses United describes how the hospital industry has driven registered nurses from the bedside.

About safe staffing ratios

Graphic of recommended nurse to patient ratios by unit

Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act

Read our fact sheet on legislation that would protect patients and improve health care by setting mandated, minimum, registered nurse-to-patient staffing ratios.

Group of nurses inside hospital hold signs "Safe Staffing Saves Lives"

The science of ratios

Decades of studies have shown that more nurses equate to lives saved and fewer complications. Researchers have been focusing on what exactly is the mediating link between increasing RN staffing and improved outcomes.

Learning from the California experience

In 1999, the registered nurses of the California Nurses Association successfully sponsored and lobbied the California Legislature to pass A.B. 394, the historic bill that made minimum, specific numerical staffing ratios the golden standard in the Golden State.

What does the California ratios law actually require?

The CNA-sponsored safe staffing law, has multiple provisions designed to remedy unsafe staffing in acute-care facilities.

RN Staffing Ratios Whitepaper

Learn more by reading NNU's staffing ratios whitepaper.

The Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act would set specific safety limits on the numbers of patients each registered nurse can care for in hospitals throughout the United States.

Send your members of Congress a message telling them to pass this legislation and put an end to the unsafe staffing crisis!

Videos

Safe staffing ratios protect patients and nurses

Safe RN ratios have been proven to improve the quality of care and nurse recruitment and retention in California hospitals.

Join our fight for safe staffing

We need a national nurse-to-patient staffing ratios law now more than ever.

Join our Safe Staffing Rapid Response Team to be part of a dedicated team of online volunteers. Members of the team will get first notice about developments and news regarding safe staffing  and will be ready to take action both online and in their communities.

Group of three nurses standing at podium with stacks of paper report

Minnesota Nurses Association release latest safe staffing report

In early May, Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) nurses shared the results of their annual report on Concern for Safe Staffing (CFSS) forms which paint a bleak picture of the crisis of understaffing by hospital executives in Minnesota health care facilities.

Nurses outside hold signs "Safe Staffing Now"

Nurses urge federal government to address hospital staffing crisis

RNs from across the country explained the understaffing crisis at a Congressional briefing, which accompanied the launch of a new NNU report.

Nurses picketing for safe staffing

The truth about the Twin Cities’ health care bed shortage

Hospitals have traditionally run with minimal staffing and at maximum capacity. ER waits and closures, due to lack of staffing, were not new with Covid-19. Those practices have been in place for several years before Covid-19 happened.

Press releases

Registered nurses at PIH Health Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, Calif., will hold an informational picket to protest the administration’s refusal to address RNs’ deep concerns about patient care, persistent violations of California’s nurse-to-patient ratios law, and recruitment and retention of nurses
Following a year of major contract gains across the country, nurses are pledging to step up actions to demand the hospital industry end their profession’s staffing crisis by providing safe numbers of nurses to care for patients.
Thousands of registered nurse members of National Nurses United will hold actions on Thursday, Jan. 26 to demand the hospital industry end their profession’s staffing crisis by providing safe numbers of nurses to care for patients.
Registered nurses at the John Muir Behavioral Health Center in Concord, Calif., will hold an informational picket on to raise awareness of chronic understaffing and high turnover rates at the hospital.