Professional News 2008
March 2008
A new national agenda
This year is already bringing many exciting opportunities for nurses and midwives to influence health planning and policy to achieve better health outcomes for all Australians. Many of these projects seek to achieve national consistency in the delivery of health care.
The ANF is involved in representing nurses and midwives on several projects, including:
- A national patient charter of rights is being developed by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. This charter will outline the key rights of health consumers when receiving health care as well as a nationally agreed set of principles to underpin the provision of health care, wherever care is delivered.
- Nationally agreed specifications for a standard patient identification band for use in hospitals are also being developed by the Commission as part of a national response to address patient misidentification. This project will expand the existing Ensuring correct patient, correct site, correct procedure protocol to include radiology, radiation oncology and nuclear medicine. The ANF is preparing a response on behalf of nursing and our members. Nurses and midwives can access these draft documents on the Commission’s website: http://www.safetyandquality.org/.
There is also a great deal of work continuing in the effort to achieve national consistency for nursing and midwifery. In preparation for national registration and accreditation, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council is currently undertaking two projects: one which will have significant impact on the preparation of nurses and midwives for initial registration and the other on the demonstration of competence for continued registration.
The ANF is representing members on the steering committee for the project to develop national standards for the accreditation of nursing and midwifery courses leading to registration.
The draft framework for the other project on continuing competence, as it is currently proposed, will link mandatory continuing professional development, minimum practice hours and peer review to ongoing nursing and midwifery registration. The ANF has opposed the proposed mandatory model. The Federation strongly supports nurses and midwives self-assessment of competence and participation in voluntary professional development activities. Self declaration of competence to practice is and remains the appropriate mechanism by which nurses and midwives, as educated and qualified health professionals, should renew their registration. The introduction of the framework as it is currently proposed would have far reaching implications for the nursing and midwifery workforce. Further details are available at: http://www.anmc.org.au.
Nurses who would like to contribute to these projects can contact Julianne Bryce at julianne@anf.org.au
Julianne Bryce
ANF Federal Professional Officer