The impact of “missed nursing care” or “care not done” on adults in health care: A rapid review for the Consensus Development Project

Aim: To identify outcomes of missed nursing care for adult patients. Design: A five-stage rapid review process was conducted as follows: refining the question, retrieving relevant studies, determining the studies to be included, organizing the data and synthesizing the results. Methods: Papers published between 2010–2020 that focused on the UK, Europe, the USA and Oceania were searched for keywords in the title and abstract in major databases. The articles that identified the impact of missed nursing care on adults in health care were selected. Results: Seventeen articles met the criteria. Major impacts of missed care in adult settings were increases in mortality, adverse events and failure to maintain. These same studies also identified a range of causative factors linked to ward environment, inadequate staffing levels and skills mix although are inconclusive. Solutions include continuing education, ward and work re-design, and appropriate skill level.