Eunice Muir transcript
My name is Eunice Muir. I’m the executive nurse director of NHS 24 which is the national telehealth service for NHS Scotland. But I’m a practicing nurse and midwife as well, and I have a long career in primary care, acute care, and in management as well.
An effective practitioner is a practitioner who is safe, who is effective and who fundamentally is person-centred in the delivery of their care. And it’s the essence of what being a true professional is all about.
The Effective Practitioner initiative is a national initiative of learning resources for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals across NHS Scotland. We’ve developed this initiative to support practitioners at levels five and six and we recognise that this is probably the biggest group that provides direct care to patients.
Every nurse, midwife and allied health professional is regulated by a regulatory body, either the NMC or the HPC, and in order to re- register you need to extend your skills, maintain and expand your knowledge and demonstrate your competence in practice. TheEffective Practitioner Initiative will enable this with specific tools to evidence your own continuing professional development, supporting your KSF. These are very critical components of this initiative. I think it’s really important for every nurse, midwife and allied health professional to recognise that they have a responsibility to make improvements and the Effective Practitioner initiative, undoubtedly, will give each of these professionals tools to reflect on their practice and think about how they can make a difference.
This links into our national policies – the main policy being the NHS Scotland Healthcare Quality Strategy. Importantly, you’ll know about the Scottish Patient Safety Programme, and the other key programme is Better Together which is the patient experience programme. We are using all of this to link together to recognise and support practitioners in their day to day practice.
If you’re happy at work – it’s contagious. People feel cared for when they recognise that you have a sense of purpose and of delivery. There is no doubt that in day-to-day practice we can learn a lot from listening to our patients and recognising how best we can protect them and keep them safe.
This initiative enables these clinicians to take the time to reflect with their colleagues. It’s not just purely about the individual, it’s about working in teams, work-based learning, reflecting critically on your practice and identifying whether, yes I could have done that better. Next time I will.