6 Crisis in the community
Matter for discussion submitted by the RCN Health Visitors and Public Health Forum
That this meeting of RCN Congress discusses the impact of the current NHS financial crisis on community nursing
- Work lead by the Membership, Representation and Diversity Committee
- Lead RCN Council member: Gareth Phillips
Since Congress 2007, the RCN General Secretary has raised concerns with key UK health officials about the development of a community nursing workforce that is equipped to meet the aims of various health reforms.
This work has now been overtaken by Modernising nursing careers, which has a separate work stream for the future community nursing workforce in which the RCN is closely involved. In terms of the general practice nursing workforce issues — which are similar to other community nursing disciplines — the RCN continues to facilitate the Working in partnership programme projects in England, which focus on general practice nurses and health care assistants and has relevance in the other UK countries.
Future workforce development will be influenced by, and possibly led by commissioners; in England the point has been made very strongly that world class services cannot be developed without world class commissioning being in place. The RCN held its first workshop on world class commissioning on 13 February 2008; nurse directors are a key target group, and the RCN has planned a number of activities to support the skilful commissioning of services and appropriate workforce.
The government has called for an expansion of general practice services in under-served areas in England. In response, the RCN submitted written and oral evidence to the inquiry held by the all-party parliamentary group on primary health care and public health in November 2007.
The RCN also submitted written evidence to the health select committee inquiry on health inequalities and improving access to services. In its evidence the RCN highlighted the importance of a well supported community nursing workforce when tackling the reduction of health inequalities and improving public health..
Wales ran a very successful campaign aimed at improving the development of its community nursing workforce. Scotland is undertaking its own separate review and will make recommendations on the future development of community nursing; RCN Scotland continues to engage with the Scottish government in this area, and is monitoring the new community health nurse model pilots in four Sottish health boards.
The RCN continues to highlight the need for community nurses throughout the UK to embrace the proper use of information technology, and exploit the full potential of labour saving technology. The Primary Health Care Journal continues to include articles which offer information on health reform, developments in the community health sector, and changes taking place in the nursing workforce. The RCN Employment Relations Department is currently developing a strategy for lobbying on improved workforce planning, The strategy will be related to developing enhanced community nursing capacity.
The RCN continues to explore opportunities to influence the development of appropriate community nursing services in all four UK countries.