| | Nursing and Midwifery
Every person. Every time. Exceptional care. |
|
|
Westmead Hospital Western Sydney LHD |
|
|
Welcome to the Nursing and Midwifery Office's latest newsletter |
| |
|
-
NSW Health towards net zero
- May celebrations
- Emergency nursing training
|
| -
Nursing and Midwifery Awards
- Mentoring in Midwifery
- Important dates
|
|
|
| I hope you all enjoyed International Day of the Midwife and International Nurses Day in May and had an opportunity to reflect on your work and acknowledge one another for the incredible job you do for every person in every way and every day. I had the pleasure of visiting CCLHD and SWSLHD for their May celebrations. Being out and about and hearing your stories is always inspiring and reminds me of what skilled and compassionate nursing and midwifery workforces we have in NSW Health. |
|
|
That skill and commitment to excellent patient care is the core reason for the annual Nursing and Midwifery Awards; those held within Local Health Districts and Speciality Networks and the state-wide Awards.
As we head into June, it will soon be time for our judges to review the many nominations for the NSW Health Excellence in Nursing and Midwifery Awards. The Awards are an important annual event for the NSW Health nursing and midwifery workforce, recognising excellence in many different ways and across all levels of seniority in the nursing and midwifery workforce. The 2024 finalists will be announced in late July and the Awards ceremony will be held in November.
We are also in the process of the annual MidStart and GradStart recruitment campaigns for 2025: the start of many a brilliant career with NSW Health, including picturesque rural or regional areas. We are in the final stages of a complete revamp of the Nursing and Midwifery Office webpages as part of the NSW Health website. These are just some of the things keeping us engaged and connected with the nursing and midwifery workforce.
I hope you enjoy the stories below, including one on the work being done – and still to be done – as we work towards net zero waste in the public health system by 2050. It’s such an important goal and one I hope every nurse and midwife will embrace. |
|
|
Jacqui Cross Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, NSW Health |
May is always a real highlight in the annual nursing and midwifery calendar, with International Day of the Midwife on 5 May and International Nurses Day on 12 May. Celebrations were had far and wide, and in acknowledgement of the wonderful nurses and midwives in NSW Health, here is the month of May in pictures. The small but heartfelt gesture struck a chord, and so an annual tradition began. Four years later, the Healing Heart stickers, it seems, have stuck. |
|
|
Port Macquarie Base Hospital 'Appreciation Tree' MNCLHD |
| Anna Lam, Associate Director Professional Practice Strategy and Maria Lingham, Director Nursing and Midwifery and Clinical Governance, WSLHD |
| Whitney Harris, Midwife of the Year, Far West LHD |
|
|
CCLHD Leadership of the Year Award recipient, Jennifer Burrows with Jacqui Cross, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer (l) and Wendy Stanbrook-Mason, District Director of Nursing and Midwifery (r) |
| International Nurses Day celebrations at Canterbury Hospital, SLHD |
| International Nurses Day celebrations at Balmain Hospital, SLHD |
|
|
Bathurst Health Service Medical Ward Team of the Year winners WNSWLHD, with Matthew Lutze, Principal Advisor, Nursing Practice, Nursing and Midwifery Office |
| Jacqui Cross, Sonia Marshall SWSLHD Chief Executive, Matthew Lamey SWSLHD acting Director Nursing and Midwifery and SWSLHD Board member Jill White |
| Luke Marks, WNSWLHD Leader of the Year winner, with Adrian Fahy, Executive Director Quality, Clinical Safety and Nursing (l) and Matthew Irvine, Western NSW LHD Board Chair (r) |
|
|
Towards a net zero healthcare system |
|
|
Julia Farrington is on a mission to help create a more sustainable healthcare system.
“Sustainable healthcare means reducing our waste and carbon emissions while improving patient outcomes and supporting our staff to take action,” she said. “It also means ensuring we can respond to climate change impacts, like more frequent and severe weather events.”
Julia is the Principal Policy Officer with the Climate Risk and Net Zero Unit at NSW Health, the team charged with coordinating NSW Health’s transition to a low-carbon, climate resilient, high quality health service. It seems like a complex, almost impossible vision, but it’s the little things that can add up. |
| |
|
From looking at ways staff and consumers travel to and from hospital, to what vessel we drink our coffee from while at a hospital or facility, through to new builds with solar panels, and more efficient lighting, as well as implementing low carbon models of care.
“Healthcare produces a huge amount of waste. For example, in the Hunter New England Local Health District, more than 28 million plastic gloves are used annually, generating 97 tonnes of landfill,” Julia said. That statistic led the District to launch the Gloves Off project, to reduce unnecessary waste and improve hand hygiene.
You can find out how to implement the program in your district here: Gloves Off! | HNE Health (nsw.gov.au)
Before heading into strategic policy and research work – here and in the UK with the National Health Service’s Greener NHS program – Julia was an emergency RN, so she understands the role nurses and midwives play in making healthcare more sustainable.
“Nurses and midwives play a key role in patient education, particularly in health promotion and disease prevention. We need to ensure our patients are healthy, well, and independent, and keep them out of hospital,” she said.
“As the clinicians providing the most hands-on care, nurses and midwives are also perfectly positioned to be mindful and to ask the question ‘What could we do differently here?’ “For example, if you find a lot of unnecessary single use items are included in procedure packs that just end up in the bin you could pause and ask ‘Who can I talk to about this?’.” NSW Health is aligned with NSW Government targets to halve carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050. “I’m really looking forward to seeing all the research and innovation that will come out over the next five years – that’s very exciting,” Julia said. On a personal level, Julia is a lover of all things second hand. “Almost everything I wear is preloved, and I can spend hours in a second-hand bookstore.” She is also a keep cup champion. Find out more here Climate risk and net zero (nsw.gov.au)
If you or your team has a project or process underway to help green our system and reduce waste, let us know at: MoH-namonews@health.nsw.gov.au |
|
|
Earlier this year, the Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC) released updated NSW Health Sepsis Pathways to best support clinical teams to recognise and respond to patients with sepsis across the state.
“It was important to align with the national Sepsis Clinical Care Standard and current evidence-based guidelines,” said Mary Fullick, Senior Improvement Lead, Adult Patient Safety Program at the CEC.
Sepsis is one of the top five causes of clinical deterioration, and having accurate user-friendly pathways helps support clinicians to recognise and treat sepsis effectively. The adult, maternal, neonatal and paediatric sepsis pathways have all been updated to support clinicians to identify sepsis risk factors, signs and symptoms, escalate to a senior clinician and commence treatment rapidly.
“The key message that underpins this work is we want nurses and midwives to ask the question – ‘could it be sepsis?’ and then escalate”, said Mary. "Sepsis is a medical emergency. We have really focused on human factors and making the pathways easier to use.” Nikita Donnelly, Clinical Nurse Consultant at the Prince of Wales Hospital was seconded to the CEC and co-led the Adult Pathway review. |
Mary Fullick and Nikita Donnelly |
“Normally I would be the one at the other end of a project like this; educating, implementing and rolling out the new pathways,” said Nikita. “So, it’s very rewarding to be able to have a statewide impact this time.”
Nikita’s passion is patient safety, and timeliness in treatment that prevents further deterioration in a patient. “Making a difference at the point of care is what drives me,” she said. Ultimately, both Mary and Nikita want patients, families and loved ones to receive the very best care possible.
“Meeting people who have survived sepsis – or meeting the families of those who didn’t – reinforces everything about the work we do.” The CEC has produced a series of webinars to support sepsis pathway rollout, and there is further information about the pathways on the CEC website.
Nurses and midwives can contact their local clinical governance unit for further information or contact the CEC on cec-deterioratingpatient@health.nsw.gov.au. |
Training modules to expand emergency nursing skills |
|
|
|
The Nursing and Midwifery Office (NaMO) has been working with the Health Education and Training Institute (HETI) and the Agency for Clinical Innovation (ACI) to develop a range of new education and training resources to support emergency nursing. “The new education programs will be particularly useful for nurses working in rural areas, enabling them to work to their optimal scope of practice and increasing patients' access to timely healthcare and |
|
|
and treatment,” said Yervette Jones, Principal Advisor, Nursing and Midwifery Priorities. There are three new programs available - Nurse initiated x-rays (NIX), Plastering and Wound Closure Education. The education programs each include an eLearning module, local face to face workshop and capability assessments. The Nurse initiated x-ray (NIX) program - course code: 521301217 –provides the knowledge and skills for nurses to initiate x-rays for patients requiring limb and chest x-rays.
The Plastering program - course code: 521283524 - is designed for nurses to increase their knowledge and skills when providing care and treatment for a patient with a limb injury. The Wound closure program - course 523553707 – supports nurses provide assessment and closure of minor wounds. The program includes an eLearning module, local face to face workshop and capability assessment.
They are all available in My Health Learning (search by course code or name of module), and you can read more about the new resources here: NSW Health emergency nursing education and training.
The new online training modules will enhance the online workplace learning modules already available in Rural Nursing Pathways in Practice (RNPiP) program, which focus on nursing assessment skills. “RNPiP supports enrolled and registered nurses working in rural facilities by providing foundational education that enables nurses to work to their optimal scope of practice,” Yervette said.
“This is such important work for nurses’ professional practice, and ultimately for timely patient care. NaMO is pleased to have been able to support the development and delivery of these programs.” |
|
|
Jacqui Cross, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, joined Northern NSW for their local Nursing and Midwifery Awards ceremony, and for visits to both Lismore Base Hospital and the newly opened Tweed Valley Hospital.
The Tweed Valley Hospital is impressive in many ways. Alongside innovative models of care, the new facility is also an environmentally responsible development, with a large solar energy system that provides a quarter of the power for the main building, water saving fittings and fixtures, and a massive 400kl water tank for irrigation on campus and to supplement water needed for the cooling tower.
Designed in partnership with clinicians, staff and the community the 430-bed $723 million hospital will deliver the best clinical outcomes for patients in the Tweed region. Equally impressive are the nursing and midwifery workforces across the district. Congratulations to all the finalists and winners in the NNSW Nursing and Midwifery Awards! |
|
|
Nursing Unit Managers and staff with Jacqui Cross Lismore Base Hospital |
| Katharine Duffy, NNSWLHD Director of Nursing and Midwifery, Bernie Waller, Life Achievement Award recipient, and Jacqui Cross |
|
|
Excellence in Nursing and Midwifery Awards open now! |
Nominations for the 2024 NSW Health Excellence in Nursing and Midwifery Awards opened 6 May and nominations have been steadily pouring in. Nominations close on 14 June. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to nominate a colleague for the Healing Heart colleague Award. Finalists will be announced at the end of July with the Awards ceremony to follow in November. Nominate now and keep up to date on the EiNMA webpage |
|
|
NaMO’s Principal Advisor of Midwifery, Kelley Lennon, facilitated a webinar on Mentoring in Midwifery in May.
The webinar was hosted by the Values Based Healthcare team at NSW Health and focussed on the power of mentoring to improve healthy workforce culture and the experience of providing care. Mentoring in Midiwfery is an innovative, sustainable mentoring program that can be embedded into midwifery training and everyday practice across the state. |
| |
|
This program uses reciprocal learning relationships to support a strong, confident and skilled workforce. If you missed it you can watch it on Value@NSWHealth. |
|
|
Important dates // June, July and August |
|
|
14 JUNE: : Excellence in Nursing and Midwifery Awards 2024 nominations close |
18 JUNE: Applications open for the NSW Health 2025 GradStart (nsw.gov.au) recruitment at 9am and close 11:59pm 1 July. |
|
|
30 AUGUST: Wear it Purple Day save the date - an annual LGBTIQA+ awareness day, especially for young people |
|
|
|
.jpeg)
