MOST of us have been to an NHS hospital in recent times.

Even if you have not had direct experience yourself, you will have been to visit a child or grandchild, or more likely, an elderly relative.

When people talk about their experiences of visiting hospitals there are a series of comments which are often made. “The nurses were rushed off their feet…” or “we had to go and look for a nurse…..” or “the nurse didn’t have enough time.”

I am sure you can remember someone making a comment like that and usually those kinds of comments are more common in recent times than in the past.

The evidence of our own experience is illustrated by figures produced by the Royal College of Nursing which show that Wales has the highest number of patients per nurse in the UK – 10.5 in Wales compared to 7.2 in Northern Ireland, 8.5 in England and 8.8 in Scotland.

We need to invest more money in nurses. But there are overall savings which hospitals could make if they have more nursing staff.

Nurses who have fewer patients are able to spend more time with each patient providing better care.

This means they are more likely to identify potential problems and reduce the level of treatment needed, thereby cutting costs for the NHS.

This view is illustrated by the Francis Report into the mis-treatment of patients at Mid Staffordshire where the priority given to financial performance over adequate staffing levels was a significant factor in the poor care delivered at Stafford.

That is why Assembly Member and Liberal Democrat Leader, Kirsty Williams, put forward a private members’ bill supported by the Royal College of Nursing to enshrine minimum nurse staffing levels in law. Imagine her delight last December when her bill was drawn from the ballot. But we need your help.

On Wednesday, March 5 Assembly members will vote on whether to allow the bill to move to the next stage. That will allow further debate on the benefits of minimum staffing levels and how they might work in practice. I will be voting yes and I hope all AMs will be joining me. You can encourage them by visiting www.morenurses.org.uk .

The More Nurses Campaign can also be found on Facebook: https://www.facebook.

com/#!/morenurses or why not tweet your followers using #morenurses. Thank you for your support.

WILLIAM POWELL AM

Welsh Liberal Democrat for Mid and West Wales.