Student nurses, increasing placement capacity and patient safety. A retrospective cohort study

One solution to the global nursing shortage is to increase the numbers of student nurses: clinical placements need to increase their capacity to host them. Capacity increases have previously been viewed as problematic if they increase the supervisory burden on registered nurses, and unsafe if they dilute students’ supervision. The aim of this study was to assess the impact on specific patient safety measures (pressure ulcers, falls and medications errors) of having students in placement being educated in Collaborative Learning in Practice (which increases capacity) compared to when they were not. Audit data were collected from four NHS trusts in the South West of England in a retrospective cohort study. We received data on 5532 adverse events from 15 clinical areas in four NHS trusts, with 996 students on placement between January 2018 and August 2019. The risk ratio and mean differences for adverse patient events were favourable (RR = 0.9842; 95%CI 0.9604–1.008; mean difference 279, 95%CI 213–346, p = 0.01). There was no statistically significant correlation between increased student numbers and increased adverse patient events. Our data must be interpreted with caution, but we conclude that increasing capacity for student nurses in placements appears to have a positive impact on patient safety. •We examined the impact of increasing student numbers in placement.•We used adverse patient events: falls, pressure ulcers and medications errors.•Increasing student numbers in placement reduces the risk of adverse patient events.•There was a statistically significant impact.•Increasing student numbers appears not to be unsafe.