Nursing in 2009: What do key movers and shakers think will be the positives and negatives?

Janice Sigsworth, director of nursing at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and former deputy chief nursing officer for England:

‘Patient experience is important and it’s on the ascendancy, along with effectiveness and safety. It will continue to feature as a really important theme, both in terms of nurses’ individual practice but also in terms of the focus organisations will want to put on it.

‘The global financial climate is going to mean it will be a very difficult year for nurses generally – it will be a tight financial year for nurses personally and the nurses I have spoken to are not wanting to move jobs and are staying where they are.

‘There will be less jobs around. It will also be a challenge to recruit good candidates to training posts because of the current financial situation.’

Ros Godson, professional officer, Unite health sector:

‘The obvious winners in 2009 will be the Welsh, as the Welsh Assembly has decided to prioritise public health and has rejected any privatisation of NHS services or the organisation of services on market models.

‘The English government is heralding an era of community nurses who will lead service transformation across multidisciplinary teams, be clinical innovators and entrepreneurial practitioners. However nurse managers and practitioners report to us that they are exhausted by the their heavy workload and the constant demand to meet targets rather than care for patients or clients.’

Ofrah Muflahi, haemoglobinopathies nurse, Dudley NHS PCT, and winner of a 2008 Mary Seacole Leadership Award:

‘I think all nurses deserve to win.

‘Of course some areas of nursing intervention are poorly funded for lots of reasons but in my opinion it’s really about being innovative and forward thinking.’

Maura Buchanan, RCN President:

‘I have witnessed quality care from the nursing workforce in every part of the country.

‘Ensuring a high standard of care and improvements in patient safety will be crucial as we go into 2009, and nursing leadership must be supported and developed to deliver for patients across all sectors.

Nick Shaughnessy, lead nurse at Arbury Court, Partnerships in Care, and winner of the Nursing Times Chief Nursing Officer’s Award for 2008:

‘It will be interesting to see what impact Lord Darzi’s review will have in relation to developing a more quality-based approach for nursing and how much of a role nurses will have in shaping healthcare delivery.

‘The aim of having high-quality experiences for patients will provide challenges for all nurses but ones which we should be ready to take up and see as an opportunity to improve care and increase the role we play in service development and change. This is further evidenced in Nurses in Society: starting the debate.

‘2009 will be a key year for nurses and how we are perceived by other healthcare professionals and patients.

‘I hope we seize the opportunity to build on the current good practice which exists in both the public and independent sector and work to improve patient care through true partnership working.’

Peter Carter, RCN chief executive and general secretary:

‘For our college, our members and the entire nursing profession 2009 looks set to be another challenging year.

‘Arguably, foremost among the challenges we will face is the impact of, and fallout from, the economic downturn.

‘The RCN will continue to fight to ensure that services, patients and the nursing workforce do not become victims of the recession.’

Susan Munroe, Marie Curie Cancer Care director of nursing and patient services:

‘The main challenge for nurses is how they help patients to make the move from hospitals to home and shift the balance of care from hospitals to home. To do this nurses have to help overcome the attitudes of hospital staff that patients can’t get the quality of care at home that staff can provide in hospitals. Very few have worked in the community and they don’t understand that care can be delivered extremely well.’

Frank Ursell, chief executive, Registered Nursing Home Association:

‘Because all patients in all nursing homes are entitled to a registered nursing care contribution, it means we are seeing practice nurses coming into nursing homes more.

‘We are seeing a better relationship between them and nurses in nursing homes. They see that we do a very good job in there.

Cathy Warwick, RCM general secretary:

‘Women, babies and midwives should be the winners in 2009, because the government’s blueprint for maternity services should be in place and delivering real choice for women by the end of the year.

‘This is dependent of course on making sure that we have the right number of midwives, and that investment reaches the frontline.’

Jim Devine, former nurse and MP for Livingston:

‘I think the issue of prisons and overcrowding will become significant, we need to start collecting data on people who are admitted to prison who have learning disabilities or long-term mental health conditions – a lot of people are slipping through the net. The role of prison nurses is going to be crucial in this debate and the specialist skills they bring.’

Rosemary Cook CBE, director of The Queen’s Nursing Institute:

‘In 2009 the winners will be nurses who work in the home, like district nurses, community matrons and their teams.

‘With improving technology, ever higher numbers of people needing care and fear of catching infections from inpatient care, “home is the new hospital”.

‘Losers will be people in the health service who don’t want to change. There is no way that health services can just do more of the same.

We have to do differently, and better. Happy New Year entrepreneurs and innovators.’

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