UPDATED JUNE 27, 2023: See additional details on .
Previously reported
HARTFORD, JUNE 12, 2023—Gov. Lamont has signed safe staffing legislation, which won final legislative approval on the eve of the close of the legislative session. The final bill includes several provisions designed to improve patient safety and staff retention:
- Establishes local, nurse-approved patient limits by requiring staffing plans to be voted on by a majority of the facility's staffing committee, which will be made up of 50 plus 1 of bedside nurses.
- Empowers the Department of Public Health to hold hospital administrators accountable for implementing hospital staffing plans.
- Protects health professionals’ ability to exercise their ethical responsibility to object to unsafe assignments.
- Prohibits hospitals from forcing nurses to work more than 12 hours a day or 48 hours a week.
- Strengthens the prohibition on mandatory overtime while allowing voluntary overtime for health professionals.
- Increases transparency of hospital staffing plans to staff, patients, and the public.