In the last issue, we featured a piece by Wayne Walker, Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) guardian and multi-skilled technician at Torbay and South Devon NHS Trust. Wayne has been in the role for a little over a year now, and this piece reflects his experience.
This blog was written for the NHS Employees site ,and PCNR would like to thank them for their kind permission to reproduce it here
http://www.nhsemployers.org/blog/2016/12/now-that-you-are-a-freedom-to-speak-up-guardian
The appointment of a National Guardian for the NHS and local Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) Guardians was recommended by Sir Robert Francis, following his review and subsequent report into the failings at Mid-Staffordshire.
Wayne Walker, Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) guardian and multi-skilled technician at Torbay and South Devon NHS Trust, describes his experience in the guardian role.
This blog was written for the NHS Employees site ,and PCNR would like to thank them for their kind permission to reproduce it here (http://www.nhsemployers.org/blog/2016/08/my-experience-as-a-freedom-to-speak-up-guardian)
'Compassion in Practice' concluded this year. So what is next? Oh look, another document, Leading Change, Adding Value, which according to Jane Cummings
"...is a framework every nursing, midwifery and care professional, in all settings, can use to ensure that we achieve the best quality of experience for our patients and people, the best health and well-being outcomes for our populations, and use finite resources wisely to get best value for every pound spent".
Here is the executive summary
Rather like pain, leadership is what the individual says it is. We all want different things from a leader, which makes their job that much more difficult. And are the leadership skills required in the private sector the same as those required in the NHS? Are NHS staff particularly clinical staff, inherently good leaders? Do they have to be taught leadership?
Dr Umesh Prabhu, Dr Umesh Prabhu, FRCPBH, Medical Director at the Wrightington Wigan and Leigh Foundation Trust (WWLFT) shares his thoughts.
The House of Commons has just released a report on primary care*. Such an important piece of work on the future of General Practice and General Practice Nurses shouldn't go unnoticed. We've summarised the relevant nursing references here.
* House of Commons Health Committee. Primary Care. Fourth Report of Session 2015-16. http://HC 408. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmhealth/408/408.pdf
Is the NHS on the brink of collapse, going to hell in a handcart or ticking along nicely? It is doubtful that anyone working in the NHS would think the latter option, and most probably agree with the first.
In this article, the first of three commissioned by Healthcare Arena (https://healthcare-arena.co.uk/), Deborah Glover outlined the history of the NHS
The first of these three articles commissioned by Healthcare Arena (https://healthcare-arena.co.uk/) outlined the history of spending on the NHS. In this article, Michael Withers explores how the NHS may (or may not!) be fixed.
In the final article of three commissioned by Healthcare Arena (https://healthcare-arena.co.uk/), Stewart Munroe, owner of Pentland Medical, and Dr Aisling Koning outline where the NHS goes from here.
On the 17th December 2015, the Minister for Health, outlined nursing education reform and a new route into nursing.
This is his statement.
Revalidation, due to be implemented in 2016, will affect all Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) registrants. Revalidation is the new process by which all nurses and midwives every three years, will declare and demonstrate that they remain fit to practise. As a consequence, it is the most important change to NMC regulation since the introduction of the post-registration education (Prep) standards in 2001. It is an exciting prospect, but some people consider it daunting: it need not be.
In this article, David Foster outlines what it means for you.
To paraphrase Supertramp, ..'it came all the way from America...'
The Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTiP) is essentially a planned trade pact currently being negotiated between the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (USA). If it comes to fruition it will become the world’s largest bi-lateral trade agreement.
The central objective of TTiP is to remove regulatory barriers to trade for big business including food safety law, consumer protection standards, environmental legislation and the sovereign powers of individual states.
In this article, Daniel Legg outlines what this means for the NHS
Post 2008 financial crash, political rhetoric has centred on public sector bodies providing more for less and the NHS has not escaped this mantra. As a consequence, procurement departments have been thrust into the limelight as NHS Trusts search for ways to reduce their non-pay expenditure. Historically procurement has been seen as a transactional back office function; however more recently procurement departments are being relied upon to conjure up new approaches to reduce expenditure. In this article, Daniel Legg outlines his role.
In April this year, NHS England will impose a new national workforce race equality standard on the NHS through the NHS standard to address inequalities in BME representation at all levels in the NHS. Here, Joan Pons-Laplana presnts his thoughts as to why we should all be embracing such standards
Differentiating between sacral pressure damage and moisture lesions is not always straightforward. Fortunately, help is at hand.
Healthcare professionals may view corporate governance as a rather uninteresting subject! However, it is in fact a very straight forward concept, one that everyone involved in healthcare should be able to understand. In this article, Colin Boakes gives us an overview of corporate governance and outlines why it is important.
Patients with burns are initially treated by non-specialist clinicians and then referred to a specialist burns service. This delays definitive specialist treatment and may lead to inappropriate management of patients with burn injury. In this article, the winner of the 2014 Mölnlycke Burn Care Award, Krissie Stiles, on behalf of her team, Suzie Whiting, Karen Lambourne, Eva Daní?ková, outlines their approach to developing a regional burns care advisor network and the benefits it has realised.
Picture the scene; you’ve been asked to do a presentation at a forthcoming study day. This means that someone thinks the work you are doing deserves a wider audience – yeah! But then you think, ‘If I’m standing on the stage doing the presentation, it’s assumed that I’m the one who knows more, or at least as much, as those sitting in the audience.
Today, we are continually being asked to prove our worth, demonstrate effectiveness, and present outcomes which may or may not determine payment. However, at times it’s like we are living in the middle of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle; the more precisely you measure one quantity, the less precisely you can know another associated quantity; for example, both healing (a) and well-being (b) may be quantities we measure as outcome indicators in wound management. However, if we are being asked to focus on measure (a), which is a likely request from a commissioner, are we in danger of being unable to measure (b), which is probably more important to the patient?
So in order to remove any uncertainty, community nurses must face such challenges head-on and work with commissioners to ensure a patient-centred outcome rather than a resource-centred one. In this article, we look at the role of Clinical Commissioning Groups and hear from both the Chief Operating Officer and the Executive Nurse.
The NHS reforms brought about by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 are being embedded, but the pace and complexity of nursing work continues. In this article, Dr David Foster, Deputy Director of Nursing and Midwifery Advisor, Department of Health, outlines how he and his colleagues support the work you are doing.
