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Family Health - Nursing in Scotland: A report on the WHO Europe pilot
Foreword
In the autumn of 1999, when a small group of us first met to discuss whether Family Health Nursing had something to offer as an approach to practice in remote and rural areas, we had only a limited idea of what a Family Health Nurse might look like or do. However, it was clear that the vision of the Family Health Nurse as a generalist community nurse working with families was attractive, particularly in remote and rural areas, where current specialist models are becoming difficult to sustain.
WHO Europe originally established the Family Health Nurse project as a two-year pilot project with formal evaluation to demonstrate the impact. Our two-year pilot commenced in January 2001 when the first Family Health Nurse students commenced their studies at Stirling University and ended in December 2002, when the second cohort of students completed the programme. Our formal evaluation undertaken by Robert Gordon University covered this period.
Throughout the project to date, we have emphasised the pilot nature of the work and been open minded about potential outcomes. This was vital in order not to undermine the valued contribution of existing community nurses and to allow them to explore the Family Health Nurse concept without feeling threatened.
Of course two years is a very short time. The end of the pilot provides an opportunity to reflect back on what we have achieved and what we can learn from it to inform future developments. The fact that we have achieved so much is a very great tribute to all of the people who have been involved. The education team at Stirling University who rose to the challenge of designing a new programme from scratch, without a clear model of what the end product would be. The practice supervisors who had to try to make sense of a new role that they themselves didn't yet fully appreciate and equip the students with the skills to take it on. The pilot sites who had the vision to see what the Family Health Nurse might offer and the commitment to see through what has been, and continues to be, a very complex change programme. The researchers, who have gathered mountains of rich and complex data, responding constantly to the evolutionary nature of the project and succeeded in making some sense of it all to help inform the future. The professional organisations, regulatory bodies and other professional and lay colleagues who have supported both national and local steering groups, providing both sound advice and the challenging questions necessary to keep the project on track. But most of all, our thanks must go to the Family Health Nurses themselves. 31 nurses who were prepared to put themselves forward as guinea pigs to test out a new way of working. Their enthusiasm and commitment to learning and developing Family Health Nursing has been truly inspiring.
This report summarises what we have learnt from the initial two-year pilot and sets out how we plan to apply that learning in taking forward the development of Family Health Nursing in Scotland.
Anne Jarvie
Chief Nursing Officer
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