Nursing Contacts

Nursing in New Zealand

Chief Nurse Newsletter, May 2009

Well, the year seems to have flown by and it is time once more to thank you all for your work meeting the health care needs of New Zealanders as we celebrate international nurses day.

We now have more registered nurses in New Zealand than ever before, and demand for places in our educational system is at an all time high. The attraction of nursing as a stable career option is also encouraging people to seek to return to the profession in increasing numbers.

Ministerial commitment to nursing development also continues. The ‘In Good Hands report’ emphasises the importance of clinical leadership within our health care system and the need for nurse leaders to be acknowledged and listened to at all levels is reinforced. The importance of having well balanced and high performing nursing teams is also recognised as we being work to explore the utility of a new type of Enrolled Nurse with a wider scope of practice and commensurate level of underpinning education.

We certainly have a positive environment in which to deliver on theme of nurses day; ‘Delivering quality, serving communities, nursing leading care innovations’.

Challenges do continue, however. While our workforce is growing apace, we need to be able to ensure that shortages in certain regions and specialities are addressed. It is all well and good educating more nurses than ever, but if we cannot use them where they are most needed challenges to service delivery will remain. Likewise, we need to have effective systems in place to provide quality clinical experience to students, both in primary health and acute care settings, including specialist input in areas such as mental health.

Our Nursing Council is to embark upon a review of undergraduate education, and this will no doubt address some of these issues. For our part, the Ministry of Health will be considering the structural delivery systems of education provision and workforce planning.

Delivering on the governmental agenda of “better, sooner, and more convenient’ health care will require a coming together of a wide range of policy streams and collaboration between a range of key players in the health care sector as we seek to develop a facilitative legislative framework through which our profession can drive forward to lead those care innovations envisaged in the theme for our international day.

Thank you once again for your contribution to the work of our profession.

Mark Jones
Chief Nurse

Page last updated: 12 May 2009