Empowering ward sisters project
RCN Wales influences for action
In November 2007 Edwina Hart AM, the Welsh Assembly Government Minister for Health and Social Services, announced her intention to expand the role of hospital sisters/charge nurses, giving them more power to improve ward cleanliness, standards of care and protect patients’ meal times.
The initiative arose from representations made to the Minister by the Royal College of Nursing and other staff and professional leaders in Wales. There is ample evidence, from research and from hospital visitors and family members, that cleanliness and nutrition have direct implications for wider matters of patient recovery, length of stay and delayed transfer of care.
A Task and Finish Group chaired by Tina Donnelly the Director of RCN Wales chaired the Task and Finish Group which drerw up its proposals for actions in the spring of 2008.
The Empowering ward sisters/charge nurses report now called Free to Lead, Free to Care has now been launched and you can read the report and download more information on the CNO section of the Welsh Assembly Government website. The report which contains 35 proposals covering issues such as ward cleanliness, an all-Wales nurses’ uniforms and an all-Wales dress code, an end to mixed-gender accommodation, protection of visiting and meal times and improved staff training has no given rise to an implementation programme led by the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales.