Letter from the editor: achieving more together
Published: 19 September 2011
Clinical Nurse Specialist Lead Lynda Gettings, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, writes about negative media coverage and the importance of striving to not only improve service but lead the way.
Dear all,
Welcome to the autumn newsletter, which I hope you will find useful.
Forum forward
The Rheumatology Nursing Forum has worked hard on strategy direction over the last three months and in doing so has formulated a charter (Word doc, 68.0KB) to make this a transparent process for forum members.
We are very keen to liaise very closely with all our forum members to support and foster meaningful relations as we strive to achieve more together in a working climate that remains challenging.
Measuring and appreciating our value
Showing what we do and how well we do it remains important for service transformation. Chief Nursing Officer Christine Beasley has recently highlighted the importance of leadership development of resources available, and the NHS Leadership Framework has been developed to provide a benchmark for strong clinical leadership that has a critical role to play in the delivery of high-quality services and improved outcomes for patients.
Dr Alison Leary’s latest work also reminds us how this can be done using The Cassandra Matrix I’d also like to highlight an editorial in The Lancet (June 2011) that has highlighted the value of the clinical nurse specialist role – I hope you find it useful.
Focus on the good
Sadly there has been much media coverage of substandard patient care (recent reports of poor care) for which the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has guidance on how to raise and escalate concerns about the safety and wellbeing of patients in their care. This includes online training resources intended to establish principles for best practice and complement local policy and procedure.
With this in mind, it is as important as ever to continue to highlight all the wonderful care that happens within nursing. To highlight innovations and new ideas that showcase efficient, effective high-quality care, why not visit and contribute to the RCN’s Frontline First Campaign website? Or take a look at the Department of Health’s website on self-care week, taking place 14–20 November 2011 following last year’s great success. For further resources and materials to assist in the management of long-term conditions, you can also visit the Self Care Forum’s website and share your own examples of good practice. And to keep up to date, don’t forget to visit the RCN’s web page detailing its Principles of Nursing Practice.
NICE news
The forum and ARMA welcomed the August announcement by NICE to develop quality standards for key musculoskeletal conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis and lower back pain. ARMA has worked tirelessly to ensure that musculoskeletal conditions are fully prioritised in the NHS. This is wonderful news and we hope these standards will prove to be excellent frameworks within which to deliver care, giving the best outcomes for our patients.
Conference time approaches
The RCN Rheumatology Nursing Forum exhibition and conference is planned for 9 and 10 February in Bristol. Please plan ahead and schedule this in your diaries. It could be well worth considering applying for bursary funding – 2010 award winners found the experience of applying far less daunting than anticipated and it is a helpful way of securing funding, particularly with stretched budgets. Poster prize winners were also pleasantly surprised at the supportive process in place to encourage promotion of excellent audit and research of work going on in practice, so give it go – use this opportunity to develop leadership and share excellent practice nationally.
I hope you enjoy this newsletter. Once again I would encourage you to send information you wish to share about any issues of your work, including innovative care and managing challenges in your working environment. I would also value comments on the newsletter format.
Lynda Gettings
Please contact me via the RCN on community.editor@rcn.org.uk