#NurChat to discuss "PM's statement on Nursing" 17/01/2012 Share with a Tweet
Prime Minister David Cameron announced on 5th January the creation of a Nurse Quality Forum to” lead the uptake of good practice and recommend ways of improving care standards” (Nursing Times) Mr Cameron’s action has come after reports such as the Patients Association report and The Mid-Staffordshire Inquiry which identified poor nursing practice. Mr Cameron advocated nurses making hourly nursing rounds, strong leadership on wards and less bureaucracy to help to raise standards of care. Howard Catton from the RCN stated (in an interview with the BBC) in response to Mr Camerons announcement that we need to ensure that nurses have time and resources to care.
Mr Camerons announcement sounds like a great step forward for nursing – less bureaucracy and more time to care is what many nurses would love to see. However is this realistic ? Do nurses have time for hourly rounds? Are hourly rounds practical on busy wards? Do ward sisters have the time and resources to show real leadership? Can nurse cut down on red tape and unnecessary paperwork in order to have time to care ?
PM orders regular ward rounds, nurse leadership and reduced bureaucracy - Nursing Times
Nursing standards: PM aims to tackle care problem - BBC
Intentional rounding; it's role in supporting essential care - Nursing Times
Cameron told nursing review 'must look at staffing' - Nursing Times
Adventures in hourly rounding - YouTube
Some of the issues that Mr Cameron has raised have already been advocated in previous chats by NurChatters as best practice and so please feel free to also revisit our chats especially the chat on "Basic" care in nursing
Summary by Teresa Chinn RN
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Post Chat Summary
View our Nursing Times blog for this chat
This chat was very busy and there were several threads going on throughout the chat so the transcript is well worth a read – but here’s a little summary for you:
The chat started by asking how NurChatters felt about the PMs statement in general? Responses were extremely varied, from disappointment that politicians feel the need to dictate nursing practice to it’s a good thing that nurses have more time with their patients.
The chat very quickly moved on to hourly rounding – again opinions were varied, there were comments made that hourly rounding could improve quality of care but concerns were raised about adequate staffing and if there was an evidence base for hourly rounding and cost effectiveness. It was suggested that some patients would not need hourly rounds while some needed constant supervision and most NurChatters agreed that hourly rounding for all was too prescriptive and not individualised. Concerns were raised about HCAs delivering a lot of care and would they be allowed to do hourly rounds? A point was raised that hourly rounding on a ward would take longer than an hour to go around just once.
The Prime Ministers red tape challenge – releasing time to care – was then discussed. SomeNurChatters felt that a lot of paperwork could be done at the bedside in order to be visable to patients. Some felt that better use of technology would help. The productive ward programme was also mentioned as a good way to release time to care.
NurChatters then looked at the PM’s Nursing Quality Forum: some felt that a committee was not needed, some felt that change needed to come from strong leaders and some felt that this committee would only repeat what other committees have done.
The debate then turned to leadership, it was asked if the NHS culture empowered good leadership and agreed that each NHS trust was different and this could be down to leadership. It was then suggested that we should all take the lead, and NHS culture was our challenge – many agreed with these thoughts.
Patient led inspections were briefly mentioned and it was generally seen as a bad thing due to infection control and privacy issues.
The chat concluded by asking what were the participants’ thoughts on David Camerons statements, whether they were good or bad for nursing? Thoughts were varied : some stated that they thought that Mr Cameron was just trying to recognise bedside care, some thought that it was great that it had got us talking others thought that Mr Cameron shouldn’t interfere with nursing tasks and that he parrots the innovations of others. One Nurchatter stated that it was a shocking day for nurses but we will rise to the challenge!
Summary by Teresa Chinn RN
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Chat Transcript (Via Storify) - Share with a Tweet
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