Nursing

The nursing programme provides strategic direction on leadership priorities for mental health and addiction nurses. The nursing programme will achieve this by a range of projects and activities detailed below. This activity aims to strengthen both nursing leadership and practice within the district health board (DHB), non-government organisation (NGO), primary health care (PHC) environment and professional bodies.

Nurses form the largest clinical group of the mental health and addiction services workforce. Nurses have a major role in the provision of mental health services. The care that nurses deliver has a significant impact on the health outcomes of people using services.

All nurses take on a leadership role and have a key role in leading the changes required to improve the health outcomes of service users. The challenge for nursing workforce development is to ensure the nursing workforce is adequately prepared for current and future service and remains robust and resilient.

A number of nursing projects are being undertaken to address this challenge.

Background

The nursing leadership manager leads the coordination and implementation of Mental Health Nursing and its Future: A Discussion Framework (Ministry of Health 2006) and to strengthen nursing leadership infrastructure nationally.

Auckland University was contracted by the Mental Health Directorate, Ministry of Health in 2004 to develop a strategic framework for mental health and addiction nursing. The purpose was to ensure a nationally coordinated approach to mental health and addiction nursing. Mental Health Nursing and its Future: A Discussion Framework (Ministry of Health, 2006) gives direction on how the key actions will be progressed by nursing leaders in DHBs, NGOs and PHC through nine recommendations.

Leadership.
Mental health nurse practitioners.
Standards.
Skill mix.
Clinical career pathways.
Professional supervision.
Education.
Research.
Recruitment and retention.

The nursing leadership role will:

be flexible and incorporate feedback from stakeholder groups and provide links to national workforce development strategy
provide direction for the changes required to deliver future services and reflect the needs of the current and future nursing workforce.

Nursing projects

Professional supervision
The first recommendation from Mental Health Nursing and its Future: Discussion Framework (Ministry of Health, 2006), with alignment to Let's get real, this project will develop and implement a new set of recommendations that have come from a small piece of distinct research that Te Pou contracted over 2007/08. The six recommendations aim to support a national consistency. This will be achieved by:

the development of a national professional supervision guidelines document completed in January 2009
the development of a structure for professional supervision, rather than the individual models that DHBs and NGOs work with. A national structure is being developed and will be tested within a DHB pilot site.

Handover
This quarterly electronic newsletter is about mental health and addiction nurses. Contributions for Handover come from a range of people, which includes, nurses, service users, advisors, allied health and education providers. The contributions include a range of content from, nurse led initiatives, service user and nursing partnerships to profiling nurses career pathways.

Valuing leaders in acute inpatient services
This project supports and strengthens in-patient nursing leadership to support improved outcomes for service users. This project links to two recommendations (leadership and clinical pathways) from Mental Health Nursing and its Future: Discussion Framework (Ministry of Health, 2006).

CLIMATE MH e-learning
This project supports clinicians' essential training requirements. CLIMATE MH will be consistent, responsive and effectively support competency in mental health and addiction services. In 2009 CLIMATE MH e-learning programme will be piloted to test its efficacy.

To follow developments in our nursing projects, register for website updates.

Where to from here

The nursing leadership manager leads this work nationally to:

coordinate the implementation of the framework
build collaborative relationships with professional bodies and stakeholders
ensure the workforce requirements for growing the capacity and capability of nurses in mental health and addiction
enhance nursing leadership at all levels.

Useful links

Nursing professional bodies

Te Ao Maramatanga - New Zealand College of Mental Health Nurses.
New Zealand Nurses organisation - Mental Health Nurses Section.
DANA - Drug and Alcohol Nurses Australasia.

Nursing documents

Mental Health Nursing and Its Future: A Discussion Framework.
See Professional supervision to download a copy of Professional Supervision for Mental Health and Addition Nurses
Also see Professional supervision to download a copy of the National Guidelines for the Professional Supervision of Mental Health and Addiction Nurses.
Advanced Practice Nursing Strategy for the Addiction Treatment Sector:A Discussion Document
This discussion document was led by Dr. Daryle Deering for Matua Raki.This document provides the context and rationale for a national strategy to implement advanced practice roles, including nurse specialist and nurse practitioner in the addiction treatment sector. The contribution that advanced practice nurses can make to clinical leadership, improving access, quality of care and outcomes for clients and their families and whanau is identified as well as the contribution of an extended clinical career pathway to nursing recruitment and retention. A set of recommendations are proposed requiring collaborative action at national and regional levels.

Further information

For more information, contact Anne McDonald, clinical lead - nursing.

Page last updated: 11 February 2010