Making A difference — strengtheningthe nursing, midwifery and health visiting contribution to...
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News and Issues Over the summer, the nurses involved have met as a sub-group to ensure that nursing issues are discussed and researched in depth. The result of this work will be service framework to be published next year. In the early part of 2000, there will be a conference to gain further evidence, information and views from clinicians working in critical care. This will be your opportunity to comment and challenge the recommendations. Look out for notification and ensure someone from your unit is there. Or contact us to give your views. Deborah Dawson Chair, RCN Critical Care Forum Research and development It was raised at the 1998 Conference that perhaps we should develop a research and development strategy for critical care. This was discussed over the subsequent year and it was felt that developing a strategy was beyond the scope of the Forum, given that we had no funding for such a task. At the May Conference, during the link members meeting, two areas of activity were proposed as a two- pronged approach to this area of interest: 1. Reviewing the literature to see what critical care research was available. We defined critical care as including ICU, HDU, CCU, burns and plastics, renal and acute spinal/neurosurgery. It should be concerned with nursing issues rather than being purely medical, and based in the UK from 1999. This work is ongoing but slow, as the committee members have to complete it in their own time. 2. Using a nominal group technique at a link members day to ascertain which nursing areas staff felt should be researched/what has little evidence base. This was carried out in December 1999 (thank you to those who took part) and the results will be available in the next Forum Newsletter. We hope, through these two approaches, to identify the areas in which there is a paucity of research and those areas in which there is a lot. This should assist those staff considering undertaking critical care research either as part of a higher degree or as funded work. It should also be useful contribution to the Doll Review of Critical Care Services. Watch this space! Bernadette O'Riordan Secretary, RCN Critical Care Forum Making A Difference - strengthening the nursing, midwifery and health visiting contribution to health and healthcare (NHSE 1999) I am sure you will all have had a chance to read and discuss the new nursing strategy led by the past Chief Nursing Officer, Dame Yvoune Moores. This document recognizes the impact nursing has on the healthcare we offer in this country. It also recognizes the changing face of healthcare and how nurses have responded and continue to respond innovatively to this challenge. It describes the challenges ahead and makes references to creativity and best practice in the following areas: • recruiting more nurses; • strengthening education and training; • developing a new, more flexible career structure; • improving working lives; • enhancing the quality of care; • strengthening leadership • modernizing professional self-regulation; • supporting new roles and new ways of working. As with clinical governance, there is much in the document that is already happening. However, it proves a framework for developing nursing, and will be of much use within critical care. It also provides a framework for showing managers how a unit might like to develop, and to help put forward an argument for finding those much-needed resources. Making a Difference is available from the Department of Health, PO Box 777, London SE1 6XH or from the NHS Response Line 0541 555 455. Deborah Dawson Chair, RCN Critical Care Forum Critical To Success - the place of efficient and effective critical care services within the acute hospital (Audit Commission 1999) The above report, published in November 1999, makes interesting reading. The commission report has found a wide variation in the way hospitals fund and manage their critical care units, and calls for more research into which treatments save the most lives. 310 Intensive and Critical Care Nursing (1999) 15, 309-312 © 1999 Harcourt Publishers Ltd
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Transcript of Making A difference — strengtheningthe nursing, midwifery and health visiting contribution to...
News and Issues
Over the summer, the nurses involved have met as a sub-group to ensure that nursing issues are discussed and researched in depth. The result of this work will be service framework to be published next year. In the early part of 2000, there will be a conference to gain further evidence, information and views from clinicians working in critical care. This will be your opportunity to comment and challenge the recommendations. Look out for notification and ensure someone from your unit is there. Or contact us to give your views.
Deborah D a w s o n Chair, RCN Critical Care Forum
Research and development It was raised at the 1998 Conference that perhaps we should develop a research and development strategy for critical care. This was discussed over the subsequent year and it was felt that developing a strategy was beyond the scope of the Forum, given that we had no funding for such a task.
At the May Conference, during the link members meeting, two areas of activity were proposed as a two- pronged approach to this area of interest:
1. Reviewing the literature to see what critical care research was available. We defined critical care as including ICU, HDU, CCU, burns and plastics, renal and acute spinal/neurosurgery. It should be concerned with nursing issues rather than being purely medical, and based in the UK from 1999. This work is ongoing but slow, as the committee members have to complete it in their own time.
2. Using a nominal group technique at a link members day to ascertain which nursing areas staff felt should be researched/what has little evidence base. This was carried out in December 1999 (thank you to those who took part) and the results will be available in the next Forum Newsletter.
We hope, through these two approaches, to identify the areas in which there is a paucity of research and those areas in which there is a lot. This should assist those staff considering undertaking critical care research either as part of a higher degree or as funded work. It should also be useful contribution to the Doll Review of Critical Care Services. Watch this space!
Bernadette O'Riordan Secretary, RCN Critical Care Forum
Making A Difference - strengthening the nursing, midwifery and health visiting contribution to health and healthcare (NHSE 1999) I am sure you will all have had a chance to read and discuss the new nursing strategy led by the past Chief Nursing Officer, Dame Yvoune Moores. This document recognizes the impact nursing has on the healthcare we offer in this country. It also recognizes the changing face of healthcare and how nurses have responded and continue to respond innovatively to this challenge.
It describes the challenges ahead and makes references to creativity and best practice in the following areas:
• recruiting more nurses; • strengthening education and training; • developing a new, more flexible career structure; • improving working lives; • enhancing the quality of care; • strengthening leadership • modernizing professional self-regulation; • supporting new roles and new ways of working.
As with clinical governance, there is much in the document that is already happening. However, it proves a framework for developing nursing, and will be of much use within critical care. It also provides a framework for showing managers how a unit might like to develop, and to help put forward an argument for finding those much-needed resources.
Making a Difference is available from the Department of Health, PO Box 777, London SE1 6XH or from the NHS Response Line 0541 555 455.
Deborah D a w s o n Chair, RCN Critical Care Forum
Critical To Success - the place of efficient and effective critical care services within the acute hospital (Audit Commission 1999) The above report, published in November 1999, makes interesting reading. The commission report has found a wide variation in the way hospitals fund and manage their critical care units, and calls for more research into which treatments save the most lives.
310 Intensive and Critical Care Nursing (1999) 15, 3 0 9 - 3 1 2 © 1999 H a r c o u r t Pub l i shers Ltd
