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Jane Cummings, Chief Nursing Officer, England: "Staffing numbers alone is not enough"
Hospitals in England are to be made to publish monthly details of whether they have enough nurses on their wards.
From April, patients will be able to see the numbers on a new national safety website, and whether they meet recommended levels.
It forms part of the government's response to the public inquiry into the Stafford Hospital scandal, which will be laid before Parliament later.
Labour said the "new focus on recruitment" was long overdue.
The move has been called for by nurse leaders and MPs in recent months.
The neglect and abuse at the hospital between 2005 and 2008, which led to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of patients, had already been well documented, but the £13m Francis Inquiry, published at the start of February, also revealed wider cultural problems in the NHS.
Intense debateIt accused the NHS of putting corporate self-interest ahead of patients and concluded that the failings went from the top to the bottom of the system.
In total 290 recommendations were put forward and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is expected to say most of them have been accepted, when he addresses MPs later.
It has already become clear steps such as creating an offence of wilful neglect to cover nurses and doctors and tougher standards for healthcare workers will be introduced.
But in recent months there has been intense debate about the issue of staffing levels - something the Francis Inquiry said should be looked at.
End Quote Jane Cummings Chief Nursing OfficerPatients and the public are therefore entitled to know that we have the right number of people in place to provide safe, quality care every time"
The Safe Staffing Alliance, which includes organisations such as the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), has called for a minimum ratio of one nurse to eight patients, while the Health Select Committee has said hospitals should follow the lead of hospitals like the Salford Royal, which displays staffing levels on individual wards.
The government has already asked the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the official advisory body for the health service, to look at how safe staffing should be measured.
Evidence suggests different levels of staffing are needed for different wards.
That means there will be no overall minimum.
Instead, the new website - expected to be run by NHS England or the Care Quality Commission - is likely to give details on numbers of staff and whether they breach recommended levels.
It is also expected to include information on other indicators, such as death rates and complaints, although these are already publicly available.
Hospital boards will be required to publicly review the data twice a year.
'Open and honest'Chief Nursing Officer Jane Cummings said: "We have very clear evidence of a link between appropriate staffing and the outcomes of our patients. Patients and the public are therefore entitled to know that we have the right number of people in place to provide safe, quality care every time."
Janet Davies, director of nursing at the Royal College of Nursing, told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme that not having enough nurses could have a "devastating" affect on standards of care.
She said there needed to be some sort of approach to mandating staffing levels, either by legal mandate or by demonstrating a level of care by the level of staff on wards.
Health care assistants also needed to be regulated in some way, she said.
"It's only right people providing such important care - intimate care - to patients are regulated," she said.
Health Minister Norman Lamb added safety was about "being open and honest".
"We are determined to see the NHS become a world leader in patient safety - with a safety ethos and level of transparency that matches the airline industry," he said.
He also said the Francis report seemed to be having an effect already, with latest data suggesting the NHS was planning to hire more than 3,700 extra nurses in the coming months.
This comes after official figures show about 3,000 have been lost in recent years.
RCN general secretary Peter Carter said: "Greater transparency on staffing levels on every ward will encourage trusts to examine and assess whether they have a safe level of staff."
But he added: "It is also important that trusts are able to take action if their staffing levels fall below this number."
Labour's shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said there were close to 6,000 fewer nurses in the NHS than when the government came to power in 2010.
"As a result, too many hospitals in England do not have safe staffing levels," he said.
"We have repeatedly warned the government about nurse numbers falling to dangerous levels. This new focus on recruitment is overdue but it shouldn't have taken this long and it won't be enough to repair the damage of three years of falling nurse numbers on David Cameron's watch."
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