Organisational and Governance Conditions Shaping Psychological Safety and Structural Vulnerability in Float Pool Nursing: A Qualitative Study.

BACKGROUND

Healthcare organisations increasingly rely on flexible staffing models to maintain continuity and quality of care amid demand volatility, workforce shortages and rising clinical acuity. Float pool staffing is central to these models, yet the organisational and leadership conditions required for safe mobile nursing practice remain insufficiently understood.

AIMS: To explore the lived experience of registered nurses and nursing assistants working within a hospital float pool and examine what their accounts reveal about the organisational and leadership conditions required for sustainable mobile workforce models.

METHODS

A descriptive phenomenological study, informed by Husserlian philosophy and Colaizzi's method, was conducted in a large tertiary hospital in Spain. Semistructured interviews were undertaken between March and May 2025 with a purposively selected sample of float pool staff (n = 12; six registered nurses and six nursing assistants). A brief preparatory contextual checklist informed interview guide refinement and contextual understanding without constituting a separate quantitative analytic component. Data were analysed through iterative immersion, coding and thematic development. Reporting followed COREQ and SRQR guidance.

RESULTS

Float pool practice emerged as structurally vulnerable work shaped by uncertainty, inconsistent expectations and fluctuating legitimacy across units. Mobility disrupted psychological safety, belonging, and the enactment of expertise, requiring continuous adaptation and emotional regulation. Inadequate induction, blurred role boundaries and uneven supervisory support intensified vulnerability, whereas inclusive and supportive leadership behaviours were experienced as protective.

CONCLUSIONS

Sustainable mobile staffing is not secured by individual adaptability alone. It depends on organisational governance that reduces uncertainty, standardises induction and role clarity and embeds supportive leadership and reflective structures across receiving units. Float pool practice, therefore, requires organisational rather than purely individual solutions.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Nursing managers should recognise float pool nursing as a specialised area of practice requiring defined competencies, consistent orientation and leadership practices that foster psychological safety, inclusion and workforce sustainability across mobile staffing systems.