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NURSING For HEALTH: TWO YEARS ON
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
In 1999,
Towards a Healthier Scotland recommended that there should be a review of the public health function led by the Chief Medical Officer and a review of the contribution of nurses to improving the public's health. Work on the review of nurses contributions commenced in September 1999, consisting of a literature review, a review of current policy and a review of practice. A participative approach was taken throughout, seeking to engage with a wide range of nurses and the partners they work with, both within the NHS and in other agencies.
Nursing for Health was published in March of 2001, setting out a radical agenda for developing nursing's contribution to health improvement. In total, some 17M was made available from the Health Improvement Fund to support implementation.
One year on from publication, NHS Boards were asked to provide a written report on local progress with implementation. This was followed up by visits to each NHS Board area to meet with a variety of people involved in the implementation of
Nursing for Health's recommendations.
This report sets out to draw together the main points from this review process alongside the findings from two series of conferences held during the summer of 2002 that looked at developing nursing's contribution to public health.
DEVELOPING PUBLIC HEALTH NURSING PRACTICE: CONSENSUS CONFERENCES
Three consensus conferences on the future of public health nursing practice were held in Renfrew, Dunfermline and Nairn in the summer of 2002. The conferences aimed to attract a mix of practitioners, managers and other key stakeholders to develop a clear vision for the future of the public health nursing role and to formulate an action plan to achieve that vision. The origin of the conferences was a recognition that the introduction of newly qualified public health nurses into practice would require us to consider the implications for the whole public health nursing workforce.
Each conference began with four presentations that set out the national, regional and local contexts for public health nursing practice and education around Scotland. The presentations were followed by small group discussions, which had been structured and facilitated by LHCC public health practitioners.
The first group sessions aimed to identify a collective vision for public health nursing, with participants being asked the question, "What will public health nursing look like in five years time?" Following the vision session, participants were asked to work again in their groups to discuss actions that could be taken at national, regional, local and practitioner levels in order to achieve the emerging vision for the future public health nursing role. A full report from the conferences is attached to this paper as Annex A.
PUBLIC HEALTH NURSING: REALITY OR ROCKET SCIENCE?
This was the title of two seminars organised by the Promoting Public Health in Nursing (PPHiN) network group in April 2002. PPHiN was concerned with the public health roles of the wider nursing and midwifery workforce as the debate around public health nursing had been at that time focused mostly on health visiting and school nursing. The aim of the seminars was to identify the drivers and barriers for nurses and midwives to adopt public health approaches and to provide a platform for discussion of the role of public health approaches in their day-to-day work. Participants in the two seminars came from a very wide variety of nursing disciplines and midwifery, including some people from the acute sector and a voluntary organisation. The report from the seminars can be found on the PHIS website:
www.phis.org.uk
Nursing for Health - Two Years On summarises achievements against each of the recommendations from
Nursing for Health and the outputs from the conferences and sets out future challenges and plans in delivering the vision of:
"
enabling all nurses to realise their potential to influence the health of the people of Scotland".
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