13 October 2014

Dear Members,

There is a lot happening in the sphere of primary health care nursing and your professional association has been busily checking out the action and making representations on your behalf. Since my last entry in APNA’s eNews, Kathy Bell and I have had a very successful two days of meetings in Canberra. We met Senator Richard Di Natale, the Greens’ health spokesperson, and also the Hon Catherine King MP, the Shadow Minister for Health. We received warm welcomes from both politicians and both were well informed about primary health care and the important role that nurses in primary health care play in patient care, population health, and support for practices and services. We emphasised that nurses play a crucial role in improving access to care for the Australian population, and that to build and maintain a robust and well informed workforce there needs to be ongoing and adequate funding. We also met with Janine Mohamed and Colleen Gibbs from the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives (CATSINaM). APNA has been invited to attend their Summit in early November and we look forward to strengthening our ties with CATSINaM.

Kathy Bell and I also met Australia’s Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, Dr Rosemary Bryant, and key leaders from the health workforce branch within the Department of Health. We updated the Department on our activities, particularly the direction we are taking to commence work on our long awaited education and career framework. Don’t forget to visit our new APNA online forum, ‘APNAnurses CONNECT’ which was launched on Thursday last week and is already attracting much attention. To help kick off the action on our new forum, have your say on the career framework. Your views count!

In other news, APNA Vice President, Julianne Badenoch attended the RACGP conference ‘GP14’ this week. This was a valuable opportunity to keep abreast with changes in the general practice environment and to network and build stakeholder relationships. As an APNA representative I participated in the review of the Emergency Response Planning tool, which was showcased in a session entitled the Zombie Apocalypse. For a limited time the RACGP is offering to assist practices with online emergency response planning – contact the RACGP for more information. GP14 also saw the launch of the Abuse and violence: working with our patients in general practice, 4th edition, aka the ‘White Book’. APNA also hosts an online learning module on ‘Prevention and Management of Elder Abuse in Health Care Settings’.

Kind Regards,

Karen

An education and career framework: Be informed, be prepared and be proactive

For many years – certainly as long ago as 1998 when I entered general practice – nurses have been talking about a structured approach to employment into general practice, the education to provide relevant high quality nursing care and an appropriate structure of recognition to reflect these.

With constant input and persistent lobbying, APNA has secured funding to start this process – a very important milestone, and one to be celebrated. Even more important is to make sure we seize this opportunity and agree on a framework that suits the needs of nurses, employers, general practice teams and patients.

For this reason, the input of members is incredibly important to this process and we need to hear from all members on what you see our career framework to look like.

From novice to experienced and advanced level nurses, ultimately it is going to effect YOU!

A framework will improve recruitment, improve retention, increase recognition of skills and qualifications, and support nurse productivity by ensuring you are able to work to you full professional capability, support quality assurance by making sure the right nurse is performing the right care on the right patient at the right time.

It is hoped the career framework will encourage and recognise the important role nurses play not only as mentors of other nurses but in the development of primary health care capacity and service delivery. A well articulated career framework will facilitate a better understanding of the vital role of nurses in primary health care by employers and other health disciplines. Importantly it also supports primary health care reform, improving access by utilising nursing skills appropriately to expand access to care earlier where it can make a difference, and that means saving money for our health system.

Warm regards,

Karen

So, what do you have to say on all this? Do you think a framework will be of any use? Will it help you in any tangible way?

What does a framework look like to you? Where do you fit into the big picture?

Click here to join the discussion.