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NURSING WORKLOAD
Facing the Future has taken forward a project focusing
on the workload of nurses and midwives in Scotland. The project
builds on the Audit Scotland report, Planning Ward Nursing
- Legacy or Design? - in order to:
- review the systems for nursing workload and workforce
planning currently used throughout NHSScotland
- review how quality of care is currently measured
- clarify the information management systems used to collect
and collate data about nursing workload and workforce planning
- collect examples of good practice from the service.
Pauline Milne, Principal Nurse in the Medical and Associated
Services Division of Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust,
was seconded to the Executive to take the project forward
from July 2003 to March 2004.
The project covered all parts of NHSScotland where nursing
and midwifery services are delivered - acute care, primary
care, psychiatry, learning disabilities, paediatrics and maternity.
Five separate, but broadly similar questionnaires were developed.
In early August 2003, each questionnaire was piloted as follows:
- Acute - North Glasgow University Hospitals and South Glasgow
University Hospitals Trust
- Maternity - North Glasgow University Hospitals Trust
- Paediatrics - Yorkhill Trust, Glasgow
- Psychiatry and Primary Care - Lanarkshire Primary Care
Trust
During the pilot, the questionnaires were also reviewed by
key individuals from a variety of areas. Feedback from the
pilot of the questionnaires and comments on the questionnaire
content were considered at the Nursing Workload Steering Group
meeting held on 20 August 2003.
The amended final questionnaires - designed to reflect the
specific characteristics of the areas in which nursing and
midwifery services operate - were distributed to all Trusts
in NHSScotland at the end of August 2003. The questionnaires
focused on key issues relevant to nursing workload and workforce
planning, such as:
- workforce planning systems
- current funded establishments
- 'time out' from clinical work for charge nurses
- predictable absence allowances within establishments
- flexible staffing arrangements
- examples of best practice.
'We are trying to build up a comprehensive picture of
what is happening throughout Scotland. The questionnaires
were therefore very detailed, and great credit should go to
the nominated individuals in each Trust and their Directors
of Nursing for the information and detail they were able to
give us in a relatively short period of time.' - Pauline
Milne, November 2003
Pauline went on to conduct a series of visits all over Scotland
to talk over the issues with the people in the Trusts who
completed the questionnaires and other relevant personnel,
aiming to catch a sense of the reality of nursing workload
and workforce planning at ground-level. There then follows
a period of analysing the hundreds of pieces of data collected,
a process in which the project will be assisted by the Information
and Statistics Division.
'We want to use the information obtained from the data
to develop some recommendations on what seems to be working
well for Trusts. That way, we hope that the whole service
will be able to benefit from best practice.' - Pauline
Milne, November 2003
The project was published in April 2004 and the recommendations
have since been endorsed by the Scottish Executive.
Nursing
and Midwifery Workload & Workforce Planning Project
Nursing Workload/Workforce Planning Project steering group
members - met for the duration of the project, for more
details please see the report itself.
- Gerry Marr (Chair), Chief Executive, Tayside University
Hospitals NHS Trust
- Irene Barr, Deputy Director of Nursing, South Glasgow
University Hospitals NHS Trust
- David Benton, Director of Nursing, Grampian University
Hospitals NHS Trust
- James Buchan, Faculty of Social Sciences, Queen Margaret
University College, Edinburgh
- Teresa Crawford, Associate Director of Nursing, North
Glasgow Hospitals NHS Trust
- Kathy Dallest, eCHIP Project Manager, Primary Care Division,
Scottish Executive
- Alan Gall, Director of Finance, Grampian University Hospitals
NHS Trust
- Bridget Hunter, Lead Officer for Nursing, UNISON Scotland
- James Kennedy, Secretary to the Scottish Board, Royal
College of Nursing
- Alex Mathieson, Freelance Writer and Editor, Edinburgh
- Pauline Milne, Project Manager, Nursing Workload/Workforce
Planning
- Patricia Purton, Director, Royal College of Midwives (Scotland)
- Lesley Summerhill, Director of Nursing, Tayside University
Hospitals NHS Trust
- Neil Wilson, National Workforce Unit, Human Resources
Directorate, Scottish Executive
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