APPROVED

Note of the Nursing and Midwifery Strategy Forum (NMSF)

Friday 10th September 2010, 0930-1330

Conference Room, Summerfield House

Present:

Elinor Smith, Director of Nursing & Quality (Chair)

Roy Browning, Senior Nurse, Infection, Prevention & Control

Sean Coady, Lead Nurse, Moray

Joe Collier, Unit Nurse Manager, ARI

Helen Corrigan, Health Protection Nurse Specialist

Jenny Gibb, Head of Nursing – Mental Health

Heather Hardisty, Senior Service Manager, City CHP

Judith Hendry, Professional Head – Dietetics

Morag Hives, Nurse Manager, OHS

Mary McAuley,Head of Nursing, Children & Young People, RACH

Helen Muir, Nurse Educator, RGU

Jane Ormerod, PPDU

Phyllis Smart, Nurse Consultant, Child Protection

In attendance

Linda Leighton-Beck, Social Inclusion Manager

Eunice Chisholm, Locality Lead Nurse

Sheelagh Martindale (Eunice’s RGU tutor)

Deirdre McCormick, Nursing Officer (Children, Vulnerable Families and Early Years), Scottish Government

Graeme Smith, Head of Service Development, NHSG

Margaret Stafford, Health Visitor

Item / Subject / Action
1. / Apologies
Lynn Adams, June Brown, Gladys Buchan, Carole Edwards, Betty Flynn, Alison McLennan, Liz Norris, Steve O’Brien, Helen Robbins, Pat Schofield, Fiona Stewart, Liz Taylor, Ruth Taylor, Brian Webster, Yvonne Wright.
2. / Minute of Meeting on9th July 2010
Accepted as an accurate record.
3. / Matters Arising
3.1 / Newly qualified nurses and midwives - update:
The Group was informed that it is increasingly difficult to employ newly qualified nurses and midwives and there was discussion around how it was possible to try to employ at least a percentage of this group. The Group explored issues of employing qualified staff in unqualified bandings and felt this raised a large number of practical, professional and ethical issues. Yvonne Wright is looking at taking newly qualified nurses onto the nurse bank, but that will be a small number of newly qualified nurses. The Group agreed to continue to monitor the situation.
3.2 / Clinical Supervision Policy – Progress Update
Jane updated the Group that she now has a copy of Shetland’s Clinical Supervision Policy and it is being compared with the NHS Grampian Clinical Supervision Policy. The plan is to update the NHS Grampian policy and get it ratified. There had been a question of including case supervision, but it was felt that this made it more difficult and should be excluded at this stage. The Group also felt it was important to undertake a stock take of exactly what was happening to date and the pros and cons of the current situation. Sean very helpfully suggested that Linda Glen could be involved in this work and he would put Linda in touch with Jane to take this forward. / SC
4. / Gender Based Violence
The presentation from Linda Leighton-Beck and Margaret Stafford is attached for information.
There was a lively discussion and various recommendations were suggested. It was agreed that Linda and Margaret are going to come back with a set of recommendations which the Nursing & Midwifery Strategy Forum will debate and agree to take forward. / EStirton
LL-B/MS
ALL
5. / Nurse Director Update
Elinor updated the Group on a number of issues that had come from the CNO. First of all she shared the joint declaration statement and suggested that this was discussed later on in the Agenda. The Prison Health Service will be transferring to the NHS and it was agreed to invite Mark McEwan to a future meeting to discuss the issues surrounding this.
NHS Education for Scotland will be funding a practice education facilitator for Boards on a permanent basis to concentrate on bands 5 – 6 and this was broadly welcomed by everyone. Elinor updated the Group on the key nursing issues that were coming from the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Office and the highlighted issues are attached to the note of this meeting.
Health Care Associated Infection remains a key focus for the CNO Directorate. In terms of NHS Grampian the health plan was launched in April of this year and a health & care framework is now being developed to focus in detail on how the health plan will be implemented.
In addition, the quality strategy is seen as a key issue that nurses, midwives and allied health professionals can make a contribution. The CNO has proposed having an NMAHP co-ordinating council with three NMAHP quality councils sitting underneath to concentrate on person-centred safe and effective care supported by an infrastructure subgroup. This is very much at the discussion phase and Elinor will supply more details as soon as they become available. / ES
EStirton
6. / NMAHP Strategy
Jane distributed the draft copy of the NMAHP strategy. The Group welcomed this positively. It was suggested that a paragraph on workforce redesign be inserted into the text and Jane is going to have a look at the possibility of this. Jane will also look at the pictures to ensure that appropriate dress code is being observed. It was agreed that Acute, Mental Health and Learning Disability, OOH, Child Health, Shire, City, Moray, Maternity and AHPs will get back to Elaine Stirton with the number of hard copies that they would wish. The plan is to have the final document back from the printer in early October and to launch it in local areas over October and November. Jane will also look at articles in Upfront, Team Brief and the Global email system. The plan is also to make the strategy available electronically. The final distribution will be finalised at the next meeting early in November. In the meantime any comments need to be back to Jane in the next couple of days. / JO
ALL
EStirton
ALL
7. / CNO Directorate – Presentation and Discussion
Deirdre McCormick from the CNO office was welcomed to the meeting and Deirdre explained her role as Nursing Officer for Children, Vulnerable Families and Early Years in the Nursing Directorate, Scottish Government. The Group had a lively discussion around key issues, including modernising community nursing and Deirdre welcomed all the comments and distributed her contact details and would be keen to hear from people directly. / ALL
8. / Education Update
Helen reported from RGU that the capacity for student placements is a problem as wards change etc. It was agreed that we should be looking at students spending some time with clinical nurse specialist teams and Linda Harper offered placements in the OOH Service. From the Aberdeen University perspective, Pat Schofield had sent an update to say that the MSc course is going well and that 15 new students and 15 existing students have enrolled this year and the second issue was around research awareness - it is planned to re-run the research awareness course next year but funding will be required for this. Further information is available from Pat Schofield on 01224 554854. / ALL
9. / Workforce Update
Elinor updated the group on the paper that Fiona Stewart, The Workforce Manager, had produced for the Senior Nursing Group and this attached to this minute for information. / EStirton
10. / CNO – Mission Statement
The Group debated the mission statement that had been circulated earlier. The feedback was mixed and some of the key issues were that it needs to decide whether it is a Charter or a Statement or whatever. Broadly speaking it was useful and welcomed and was seen as important to have a message from the CNO. However, there were views that the language was ornate and the message too long. Again it was generally agreed that the objectives and actions were the most useful parts of the document. Sean highlighted that in Moray many teams are developing their own vision and mission and it would be useful to share this as there are lots of synergies amongst it.
The Group agreed that this will probably go on the Agenda for the next time when the final version is available and there can be more debate around exactly how this is used, although it was felt that the current document is certainly at a level which would be useful for a leadership level but not for general distribution as it currently stands. / ES
Item / Subject / Action
11. / ‘Modification of the Scottish Early Warning Score to facilitate a nurse led approach to the identification and management of deterioration in a patient’s condition within community hospitals
Eunice Chisholm joined the Group to undertake a presentation on this topic. Eunice’s presentation is attached for information. Again there was a lively discussion which provoked a great deal of debate and discussion. / EStirton
12. / Shifting the Balance of Care
Graeme Smith, Head of Service Planning, presented briefly on shifting the balance of care. The Group was very interested in this presentation and again is attached for information. At the end of the presentation it was agreed that Graeme would be welcome to come back as plans developed so that these plans could be checked out with some of the more senior nurses in Grampian, but equally the Group would be happy to enter into virtual discussion around issues that need to be addressed. One of the areas of particular interest was the issue of an optimal size for a bedded area, as the Group is only too aware of the difficulties in staffing small areas for 24 hours a day. / EStirton
13. / Date and Time of Next Meeting
Date: 19th November 2010
Time: 0930–1600 hrs
Place: Conference Room, Summerfield House

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