Policy briefings
2009 briefings
Policy and International produce briefings on a wide range of issues which affect nurses and nursing. The briefings listed below are those produced in 2009.
Some files on this page are in PDF format - see how to access PDF files.
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Published: 11 May 2009 - PDF File 63.5 KBIn the budget for 2009, it was announced that the Department of Health will be contributing £2.3 billion in additional savings to the overall reduction in Government expenditure and borrowing. Health Secretary at the time, Alan Johnson, said:"Better quality, safe health care goes hand in hand with better value for money" and NHS Chief Executive David Nicholls has written to the NHS stating that "the value-for-money challenge will be met through delivering on our quality agenda, not instead of it." However, several reports are already suggesting that there will inevitably be cuts in frontline services, training budgets, and investment in new facilities. The RCN is constantly alerted to the impact of external financial factors on patient care in the NHS. In order to better understand how the NHS was using its resources in these uncertain economic times, the RCN wrote to over 550 NHS organisations across the UK under the Freedom of Information Act and asked for a breakdown of their expenditure on external consultants.
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Published: 08 May 2009 - PDF File 3.5 MBThis document considers some of the key policy issues regarding the emergence of the role of the assistant practitioner in health care. They are: the remit and purpose of the role; reasons for the introduction of this role; the role in the wider health care workforce context including workforce numbers, nursing workload and the deployment of registered nurses. The nursing profession must hold a robust debate on all the above because the assistant practitioner role must be linked to a vision for both the future configuration of the nursing workforce, and the future function and contribution of nursing to health care within that.
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Published: 16 Apr 2009 - PDF File 55.6 KBWorld class commissioning encompasses all primary care trust and clinical commissioning. It is vital that nurses understand this process as it is the vehicle being used to drive through major reform in healthcare as outlined by Lord Darzi in High Quality Care for All in 2008. This paper gives a brief overview of world class commissioning.
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Published: 01 Apr 2009 - PDF File 48.2 KBThis briefing provides a rapid review of the lessons from published reports on health and social care system regulation. The aim is to summarise the key lessons, particularly relevant as a new integrated regulator begins its work on 1 April 2009, replacing the previous commissions. It also sets out what the RCN view is on system regulation, and what the RCN wishes to see as key priorities for the coming years. The RCN recognises that 2009/10 is a year of unprecedented change, but from 2010/11 onwards believes that there is a real opportunity to learn from the change experience to improve health and social care for the benefit of patients, carers, staff and the public at large.
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Published: 01 Apr 2009 - PDF File 98.4 KBThis policy position sets out the RCN rationale for a Nurse Executive Director on the Board of every primary care trust in England. Although there is a legal requirement that every Foundation Trust must have a Nurse Executive Director on the Board, there is no similar requirement for primary care trusts. The RCN carried out a survey of every primary care trust and the results are published showing the data across each RCN region in England. The RCN will be continuing activity on governance at board level and this position sets out the next steps to be taken.
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Published: 02 Mar 2009 - PDF File 27.1 KBThe Care Quality Commission (CQC) is consulting on the content, range and values for its Statement of Involvement. It is required to publish this and then to monitor the impact of this statement on its own business and that of the health, social care and mental health services that will fall under its new licensing powers. The purpose of this document is to make clear the questions asked by the CQC and to seek the views of members on the principles and broad approach set out in the Statement of Involvement.
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Published: 22 Feb 2009 - PDF File 884.5 KBThis document sets out key features of the current context of the ward sister and charge nurse role for quality patient care in England. Based on focus group discussions with around 90 ward sisters and charge nurses drawn from different locations and patient care settings, the findings suggest much could be done to improve the clinical leadership role of ward sisters and charge nurses and thus improve patient care. To this end the report makes a number of recommendations which the RCN believes are necessary in order to strengthen this pivotal nursing role. Further details of this document can be found in 'Publications and research' section of this website.
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Published: 16 Jan 2009 - PDF File 92.9 KBThe purpose of this briefing is to provide members with a background to key issues relating to assisted suicide, so as to inform member responses to an RCN consultation (which ran from 16 February until May 22 2009). It details the current legal and parliamentary positions with respect to assisted suicide, which vary between the four UK countries, and also lists current arguments both for and against assisted suicide and potential issues relating to nursing practice.
Total number: 18