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Welcome to the thirteenth edition of the monthly chief nursing officer’s bulletin. These bulletins aim to provide you with updated information about relevant issues in the NHS which will be of specific interest to nurses, midwives and health visitors. They also enable you to obtain further detail about particular issues through hypertext links. Contents this month:
Chief nursing officer’s business meetings Dates for the next round of the chief nursing officer’s business meetings have been confirmed as follows: 29 October Hanover International Hotel, Warrington 1 November Blunsdon House Hotel, Swindon 5 November Hardwick Hall Hotel, Sedgefield, County Durham 8 November Victoria Park Plaza Hotel, London SW1 These meetings are open to directors of nursing in trusts, and to lead nurses in primary care trusts and in the new strategic health authorities. Further information and booking forms will be issued within the next ten days, based on the information held on the chief nursing officer’s database. If you do not receive this, please contact Julia Stott (julia.stott@doh.gsi.gov.uk) giving full contact details of your organisation and position. There will be two rounds of meetings in 2003, in the spring and autumn. The dates have been brought forward to spread the meetings throughout the year and to move the autumn round further from the chief nursing officer’s annual conference. In keeping with Shifting the Balance of Power, each meeting will be for organisations within a particular region. In addition to core content common to every event, there will be a localised element led by the head of nursing within the directorate of health and social care for that region. Dates are as follows – venues will be confirmed. Spring 2003 3 March North 7 March South 21 March London 27 March Midlands & East Autumn 2003 19 September South 22 September North 26 September London 29 September Midlands & East National survey of NHS cancer patients More than 65,000 cancer patients from 172 NHS trusts in England completed and returned questionnaires for the national survey of NHS cancer patients, whose findings were published in July. The vast majority were patients discharged between July 1999 and June 2000, and therefore received treatment before the publication of the NHS cancer plan in September 2000. Patients had one of six types of cancer: breast, colorectal, prostate, ovarian, lung or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The survey’s 100 questions covered a range of topics relating to patients' experience of care. These included:
The report provides a benchmark from which the implementation of the cancer plan can be measured. It also provides information on which trusts and local cancer networks can draw when planning future development of cancer services. All trust chief executives will be receiving hard copies of the national overview and their relevant cancer network reports for local distribution. In addition to the national overview document, composite tables of results are available:
All the reports and tables are available at www.doh.gov.uk/nhspatients/cancersurvey. The role of healthcare professions in critical care services The critical care programme, and the value of a collective approach of professions working together in critical care, are set out in a new paper published by the Modernisation Agency. Among the roles it addresses are dietetics, occupational therapy, clinical pharmacy, physiotherapy, psychology, diagnostic radiography, speech and language therapy and critical care technology. The modernisation of critical care services began with the publication of Comprehensive Critical Care: A review of adult critical care services. The new paper, The role of healthcare professions within the critical care services, has been produced by an advisory group of allied health professions and healthcare scientists. The document includes recommendations for allied health profession and healthcare scientist involvement in the modernisation of critical care. It covers communication strategies, representation strategies, workforce development issues, role expansion and professional boundaries. The advisory group will work with local staff networks to ensure implementation of the recommendations. A Department of Health working group will consider joint implementation of the recommendations from The nursing contribution to critical care. To access the paper and links to working groups go to www.modernnhs.nhs.uk/criticalcare or contact Jill Chapman 0116 222 5119 or jill.chapman@npat.nhs.uk. For further information contact Fran Woodard, advisory group chairperson, e-mail fran.woodard@doh.gsi.gov.uk. Forty practical ways of reducing administrative burdens in hospitals are set out in a joint Department of Health and Cabinet Office report, published in July. The innovations will be implemented to free up time for frontline staff to concentrate on delivering care. The ideas have come from front-line staff, and are agreed outcomes rather than recommendations. The outcomes are grouped into three main areas: the patient journey, information flows and quality. Full copies and one-page summaries of the report are available at http://www.doh.gov.uk/reducingburdensinhospitals. For hard copies or queries please contact Vicky Lawrence, tel 020 7276 2194, e-mail psinfo@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk. All trusts and primary care trusts with wards are required to establish matron posts by 2004. Some organisations that are known to have established matron posts supplied no data in the first-quarter returns: directors of nursing should ensure that their planning colleagues are made aware of the progress made before the next round of reporting. The chief nursing officer would be interested to hear of any organisations establishing matron posts in community and primary care settings. Please send details to julia.stott@doh.gsi.gov.uk. A report detailing progress in hospitals up to April 2002 is available at www.doh.gov.uk/modernmatrons. Guidance on hepatitis C infected health care workers New guidance on hepatitis C-infected healthcare workers was issued in August, following consultation last year. There have been 15 reported health care worker to patient hepatitis C transmissions in the UK during exposure-prone procedures. The new guidance restricts health care workers who are known to be infected with hepatitis C from carrying out exposure-prone procedures as a measure to protect patients. It also recommends testing of certain other groups of health care workers, such as those about to start careers or training that will involve exposure-prone procedures. General nursing does not include exposure-prone procedures, although they may be carried out in some areas of specialist nursing (such as operating theatre nursing) and in some aspects of midwifery. The guidance is at http://www.doh.gov.uk/hepatitisc. Hard copies may be requested from the NHS Responseline, tel 08701 555455. For further information, please contact Gerry Robb, e-mail gerry.robb@doh.gsi.gov.uk, tel 020 7972 5732. Consultation on a hepatitis C strategy for England Hepatitis has emerged over recent years as a significant public health problem, with an estimated 200,000 people chronically infected in England. The Department of Health issued a consultation paper on 14 August with proposals to intensify action to tackle hepatitis C. The strategy proposes developing professional and public awareness of hepatitis C and strengthening services for its prevention, diagnosis and treatment. The proposals are intended to form the core of an action plan for hepatitis C arising from the chief medical officer’s infectious diseases strategy, Getting Ahead of the Curve. The closing date for comments is 15 November 2002. The consultation paper is at http://www.doh.gov.uk/cmo/hcvstrategy. Hard copies may be requested from the NHS Responseline, tel 08701 555455. For further information, please contact Gerry Robb, e-mail gerry.robb@doh.gsi.gov.uk, tel 020 7972 5732. Invitations to tender for projects as part of a new nursing quality research initiative, worth in the region of £2 million, were advertised and placed on the Department of Health website in August. This is a major programme of strategic research that will address issues within four main themes: workforce deployment; the essentials of care; new technologies in practice; and new roles in nursing and midwifery. In addition, a new programme of nursing research, worth around £450,000 a year, has been established as part of the service delivery and organisation programme. This programme is currently identifying priorities and will begin commissioning shortly. To help build research capacity, the department launched researcher development awards, at pre- and post-doctorate level, earlier this year. There has been an exceptionally large and high quality response and the assessment process for making the awards is currently under way. Details can be found at www.hefce.ac.uk. The Department of Health and Higher Education Funding Council for England have accepted the recommendations of a joint task group that reported earlier in the year. As a consequence, a joint fund will be established to build research capacity in nursing and the allied health professions. A committee to manage the fund is currently being formed under the chairmanship of Professor Janet Finch, vice chancellor of Keele University. The task group’s report and the response can be found at www.doh.gov.uk through the research and development pages. Extended independent nurse prescribing The first nurses and midwives to train as prescribers from the new Nurse Prescribers’ Extended Formulary successfully completed their courses in April 2002, and have begun to prescribe. Following discussions with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the Department of Health has agreed that the programme for nurses training to prescribe from the extended formulary may now be spread over a period of up to six months. Courses may, of course, continue to take place over the initially agreed period of three months if demand exists. All workforce development confederations have been informed of this decision through regional nurse prescribing leads, and will be contacting interested higher education providers. At the Royal College of Nursing Congress, the secretary of state announced that he had asked the chief nursing officer to consider ways to expand the formulary to include more medicines, and to review pre-registration education for nurses to see if some prescribing preparation could be included. Since then, the chief nursing officer has discussed the formulary with representatives of frontline nurses and the professional organisations for nursing, midwifery and medicine, and with representatives of statutory advisory bodies concerned with medicines safety. She will shortly be meeting all relevant stakeholders to discuss pre-registration education. She is due to report to the secretary of state later this month. For further information on nurse prescribing, see www.doh.gov.uk/nurseprescribing. Supplementary prescribing for nurses and pharmacists The public consultation on the introduction of supplementary prescribing for nurses and pharmacists closed on 9 July. Supplementary prescribing is prescribing by a nurse or pharmacist, following diagnosis by a doctor and the agreement of a patient-specific clinical management plan. More than 800 responses were received. A summary of these responses was considered by the Medicines Commission and the Committee on Safety of Medicines early in September, and officials will shortly be seeking ministers’ views on how best to take this issue forward. The aim is to have training in place for supplementary prescribing for nurses by the end of the year, and for pharmacists during 2003. For further information see www.doh.gov.uk/supplementaryprescribing. Health action plans for people with learning disabilities Health Action Plans and health facilitation are key elements of the Valuing People White Paper strategy for addressing the health inequalities experienced by people with learning disabilities. Good practice guidance on health action plans and health facilitation was published in July as part of a series of good practice guidance to support the implementation of Valuing People. Information on decision-making and person-centred planning has already been issued. The health action plan guidance is produced in three parts:
All versions and a flyer with details of where to obtain hard copies are available at www.doh.gov.uk/publications/coinh.html and on the learning disability website, www.doh.gov.uk/learningdisabilities. For further information contact Elaine Cooper, e-mail elaine.cooper@doh.gsi.gov.uk. Action to prevent accidental overdose with intravenous potassium The National Patient Safety Agency issued its first patient safety alert in July. The topic of the alert is preventing accidental overdose of intravenous potassium in hospitals by:
The alert can be seen at http://www.npsa.org.uk/ and hard copies are available from NHS Responseline, tel 08701 555455. Future patient safety alerts will be distributed via this bulletin. Department of Health campaign updates 'Don't give up giving up' The July edition of 'Don't give up giving up' campaign update provides an overview of current activities for health professionals and others who work with smokers and tobacco users. Printed copies are available to order via the NHS smoking helpline, tel 0800 169 0 169, quoting stock code 5080AM. http://www.givingupsmoking.co.uk/employers/campaignnews.htm ‘If you do do drink, don’t do drunk’ The Portman Group is an independent body, funded by the drinks industry, whose purpose is to help to prevent alcohol misuse and to promote sensible drinking. Its campaign is targeted on the 18-25 age group and aims to highlight the risks attached to excessive drinking and drunkenness, including accidental injury, short term and long term health problems, or becoming involved in violence, anti social behaviour or a victim of crime. The Portman Group has produced a range of posters and postcards to support the campaign (see www.dontdodrunk.com). Campaign materials can be ordered free from the Portman Group, tel 020 7907 3704, or via its website at www.portman-group.org.uk. Mental health Mind out for mental health is a campaign to tackle the stigma and discrimination surrounding mental health. High-profile activity to support World Mental Health Day on 10 October is currently being developed, under the banner "labels are for things, not people". Local groups and individuals are being encouraged to take part. Further information will be published in the next issue of the Mindshift newsletter (available at www.mindout.net). A range of free resources is available to order, including:
Stop the Stigma local action pack with information and ideas about running local events. For full details on the range of resources refer to the local action pages on www.mindout.net. Materials can be ordered on 0870 4430930, fax 0870 4430931, email mindout@codestorm.co.uk. Some stocks are limited and maximum order limits apply in most cases. Teenage pregnancy In response to a recent enquiry on the electronic enquiry board, here is some information on resources for this target group. At the national level, the National Council of One Parent Families www.oneparentfamilies.org.uk has produced a Young Mum’s Guide (with Sugar magazine), which focuses largely on parenthood, but also covers some pregnancy issues. The guide also contains a list of other useful contacts/resources covering a range of issues such as positive parenting and teenage fathers, etc. A helpline is also available – tel 0800 018 5026. Locally, teenage pregnancy co-ordinators are required to produce checklists and directories for young people which should highlight services available to pregnant teenagers. Service referral checklists should also be in place so that professionals refer pregnant teenagers appropriately. For up-to-date information visit www.teenagepregnancyunit.gov.uk Testicular cancer A new leaflet, Testicular Cancer: spot the symptoms early has been produced in association with Cancer Research UK and is available to order from the NHS Responseline, tel 08701 555455. Please quote the SMART code 27036m. Men’s health Community Health UK runs the Men’s Health & Wellbeing Network, which is developing a series of one day events across England this year exploring men’s health and wellbeing. For further details, contact the project co-ordinator, Berkeley Burchell, on 01273 234798 or berkeley.burchell@chuk.org. Parents’ week, 21-27 October This will be the third annual parents’ week coordinated by the National Family & Parenting Institute. It celebrates parents and families, aimed at getting their voice heard, making Britain more family-friendly and highlighting the work of groups who support families. This year’s theme is ‘image of families’ – looking at how families are portrayed and how families see themselves. The free pack includes display materials, press releases, ideas, advice and tips for anyone who wants to hold their own events in parents’ week. To register for a pack, e-mail info@nfpi.org or tel 020 7424 3460.
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