8.4.2 Clinical supervision: New research insights from an Australian perspective (300)

Edward White, Professor of Nursing, Faculty of Science, Health and Education, University of the Sunshine Coast, Maroochdore, Que, Australia Co authors: Julie Winstanley ewhite@usc.edu.au

Abstract:

Several Australian national and state-based inquiry documents have reported on the recruitment and retention of high quality mental health nurses. The privately experienced cost of working and coping in such contemporary mental health settings remains poorly understood. Clinical Supervision [CS], a structured staff support arrangement, has shown promise as a contribution to the clinical governance agenda and is found reflected in central policy themes across the world. However, CS remains underdeveloped in Australia. This presentation will report on the study design and on baseline data of a world-first randomised controlled trial of CS that has been funded [A$242,000] by the Queensland Treasury/Government Golden Casket Foundation. The study has been designed, not only to determine the effects of providing regular Clinical Supervision to nursing staff who work in mental health settings, in relation to their levels of personal well being, but also the quality of care they deliver and the outcomes for patients. The study is sited in 10 mental health services located in regional and metropolitan areas of Queensland, in inpatient and community settings and in the public and private sectors. The sample sizes include ~720 nurses and a sample pool of ~3000 patients. This presentation will include findings derived from several empirical CS research studies, particularly that recently yielded by a two State-wide reviews of CS arrangements in New South Wales and in Queensland and will offer an account of preliminary financial modelling that has provided new insights about the material implications of implementing Clinical Supervision. It will be argued that, in relation to policy development, CS represents a vanishingly small cap on the level of clinical nursing practice, necessary to reap demonstrable benefits. It will behove the nursing profession to comprehend Clinical Supervision as bona fide work, not an activity which is separate from nursing work.

Biography:

Dr Edward White is the Professor of Nursing at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia and Conjoint Professor at the School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales. Immediately prior to this, he was Professor and Faculty Director of Research/Responsible Academic Officer [Research] in the Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Health, at the University of Technology Sydney. Before that, he was the Professor of Nursing at Keele University, England, having previously been Senior Research Fellow at The University of Manchester and Kings College, University of London. In 1996, he co-directed the largest study of Clinical Supervision at that time in England and Scotland. With Joint Chief Investigator Associate Professor Julie Winstanley, he is presently conducting an even larger randomised controlled trial, to test the relationship between Clinical Supervision, staff well-being, quality of care and patient outcomes, funded by the Queensland Treasury and the Golden Casket Foundation, Australia, with ¼million dollars.