This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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New developments for nursing
09/07/2003
Measures aimed at improving the continuous professional development of nurses, as well their education and workload, were announced today.
Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm was visiting Nursing Times Live 2003 which is co-sponsored by the Scottish Executive and is the biggest recruitment fair for nurses and midwives in Scotland.
Opening the event, Mr Chisholm said:
"Nurses represent the largest workforce in NHSScotland. Nurses have a broad range of skills and expertise that we need to make better use of and continue to develop as we modernise the way we deliver care to patients.
"In a rapidly changing environment, with huge potential to develop new and expanded roles, Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is an essential tool enabling nurses and midwives to expand and refresh their skills.
"The Executive made additional funds available for CPD last year with Directors of Nursing working with front-line nurses and midwives to decide on priorities in local areas. I have been encouraged by many good examples of making that work, for example, Glasgow's Primary Care Trust consulted with a wide range of staff identifying leg ulcer management, family planning and cognitive behavioural therapy as priorities.
"I would like to see the same innovative use of such funds across Scotland and so I am announcing a further £1.7m for this year which will be distributed to those Trusts who are able to demonstrate the added value this initiative will make for nurses in their areas.
"Again, to ensure that the extra money gets to the right place, key staff need to be involved in their own clinical areas, agreeing priorities and influencing how this new investment is spent to develop skills and improve patient care."
The Minister also announced that the recommendations of Student Nurse Intake Planning (SNIP) - the exercise undertaken by the Executive with the NHS and partnership organisations to consider the supply and demand of nurses and midwives across Scotland - would be met in full this year by providing 525 additional student places. This follows the 250 additional students entering nursing and midwifery education in 2002/3.
Mr Chisholm added:
"There has been significant progress on improving the recruitment and retention of nurses and midwives through our Facing the Future programme. I believe the commitments in place make Scotland an even more attractive and
exciting place for nurses and midwives to work.
"Flexibility is key to addressing the workforce needs of NHSScotland. Flexible routes into and through nurse training include traditional students entering university but we are also introducing the Open University work-based programme to some remote and rural areas of Scotland where it is difficult for staff to leave their homes to attend university.
"Furthermore, we are starting to train healthcare students - existing nursing health care workers who want to become registered nurses. This is proving popular with staff, and is likely to continue for the foreseeable future as a new route into nursing education.
"These routes alongside the Centre for Change and Innovation's Balanced Working Lives, aimed at creating more flexible approaches to employment using options such as flexible hours, job-sharing and annualised hours, are designed to allow nurses to better match work and personal commitments."
The Minister also announced that Pauline Milne from Lothian Acute NHS Trust has been seconded to the Executive to manage a project which is mapping existing practice concerning workload, to support and enhance the work
being undertaken on this issue.
The project is designed to establish:
- methodologies currently in place to measure nursing workload and workforce planning;
- methodologies used to measure Quality of Care;
- the Information Management Technology systems in place to collate and analyse data and;
- collate examples of good practice in nursing workload assessment and workforce planning across NHSScotland so as to inform future developments.
A full report, to be produced at the end of the year, will propose recommendations for effectively tackling nursing workload issues across a number of diverse clinical settings.
The £1.7m for CPD will be allocated to NHS Boards, with the funding coming from the Comprehensive Spending Review 2002.
This is the second consecutive year the Scottish Executive have co-sponsored NT Live 2003 with Nursing Times.
Student Nurse Intake Planning is an annual exercise undertaken by the Scottish Executive with the NHS and partnership organisations to determine planning for the number of new student nurses and midwives required for training places at higher education institutions.
The planning is based on existing data and predictions for service needs in the forthcoming five year period. SNIP considers the overall supply and demand of nurses and midwives across Scotland through workforce planning, data collection and modelling.
Healthcare assistants attend a further education college to complete the equivalent of the first year of pre-registration nursing training, and then enter Year 2 at their local university to complete the programme.