Nursing Contacts

Nursing in New Zealand

Chief Nurse Newsletter, April 2008

Greetings colleagues,

You may well have noticed that there was no newsletter posted from me for March. This wasn’t because nothing really happened last month, far from it, just that I needed to wait for confirmation of a few things before I could bring them to your attention.

New appointments

Firstly, I am really pleased to be able to tell you that we have made two excellent appointments to the posts of Senior Policy Advisors for nursing. My new colleagues are Christine Andrews and Gabrielle Roberts. Christine and Gabrielle will start working with me on May 5th. but they are already getting up to speed on key issues relating to the world of nursing policy and practice development, including our specific mandate of capability building and innovation spread.

The good thing is that both Gabrielle and Christine have a strong background in nursing and policy development. They have worked in a range of jobs in the health sector and the Ministry and are extremely well equipped for the roles we have in mind for them! Anyway, Christine and Gabrielle say a little more about themselves in the About us section - Senior Policy Advisors.

Advisory Groups

We have also now had the first meeting of our advisory group considering the nature of the support workforce to registered nurses. This is a really exciting project which will help us design our nursing workforce for the future. You can find a summary of the meeting on the Advisory Committee on the Clinical Workforce to Support Registered Nurses page.

Continuing with advisory groups; the Expert Advisory Group on Primary Health Care Nursing has now been formally convened and you are able to view its membership and notes of the first meeting on the Expert Advisory Group on Primary Health Care Nursing page. A second meeting of the group took place a few days ago and summary minutes will be posted in these pages as soon as possible. Essentially we are still teasing out the terms of reference and key issues to be discussed by the group, but it is already clear we have a useful resource at our disposal.

South Pacific Chief Nurses' Biennial Meeting

Casting the net a little further, I had the recent pleasure of working with colleague Chief Nurses from across the South Pacific, at our biennial meeting in Sydney. We discussed a wide range of subjects, not least of which was the potential contribution of nursing in mitigating the effects of global climate change. I have to say that this was not exactly one of my key priorities prior to the meeting, but listening to the concerns expressed from some of the Pacific islands around the impact of global warming does make one think. There are adverse consequences for increase in infectious disease, and the plans being drawn up to deal with the very real threat of inundation – with the potential for evacuation of whole populations – does put some of the issues we face in perspective. Notes of the meeting are provided below:

South Pacific Nursing and Midwifery Officers Alliance (SPCNMOA) Meeting 8-9th April 2008 (PDF, 138 KB)

The South Pacific Chief Nurses’ meeting was preceded by the launch of the World Health Organization (WHO) collaborating centre for nursing, midwifery, and health development. As a member of the steering committee, it was great to see the eventuation of this project. The centre will offer a focal point within our region (the Western Pacific) for the development of human resources for health, leadership capacity, enhanced care delivery, and international collaboration between regulators, governments, professional organisations, and pretty much all organisations involved in delivering quality care outcomes. Details of the collaborating centre are available at: www.nmh.uts.edu.au/whocc/

Nurses making a positive impact back home

Coming right back home – to South Wellington in fact – just a few days ago I spent a day with nurses engaged in some really interesting initiatives improving the health of some of the more marginalised residents of the city. A project bringing together Plunket and public health nursing served as a hub of health enhancing activity working with a local school and community groups. A joint DHB / WINZ project was assisting people in overcoming health barriers to employment – with a nurse providing comprehensive assessment and referral.

Next I spent time with an outreach nurse visiting a soup kitchen, local parks, and even searching under motorway bridges for her patients / clients – the homeless people whom without her input would receive little in the way of health care.

The day ended with a visit to Evolve where one of our primary health care nurse practitioners is providing a brilliant service to young people who find it difficult to engage with more mainstream providers. Of course similar work goes on in other places, but it was so refreshing to see real examples of how nursing is positively impacting on people’s lives. Of course, we all know this is a crucial fact, but I guess we all have to keep working to ensure that more and more people understand that!

Take care,

Mark Jones
Chief Nurse