Celebrating IND is important for the profession and for raising further awareness more widely about the roles that nurses play in healthcare. I have had a perfect couple of weeks - allowing me to reflect positively on all things nursing.
Firstly, I attended the Student Nursing Times Awards where I was privileged to present the award for partnerships and where I watched the inspiring students, practitioners and lecturers celebrate their successes. What was evident was the focus on compassion, the focus on the patient, and the focus on the student as a learner. When we hear the negative publicity surrounding nursing, it is good to take the opportunity to surround oneself with the most positive and most compassionate of people. I really will need to make sure that I am there next year so that I can celebrate others' success again!
My second experience was at Westminster Abbey to celebrate the life of Florence Nightingale. I was able to attend as a previous leadership scholar with good friends that I have made through that maxing experience. What I saw were nurses from all walks of life proudly walking into Westminster Abbey to celebrate both Nightingale's life, and the work that nurses do on a daily basis - their work and that of others. I was caught off-guard when Jeremy Hunt walked into the Abbey to take part in the service, but encouraged to hear the voice of nursing in the address telling it like it is - look at staff ratios, reduce the paperwork etc....... I sincerely hope that Hunt was listening!
All of these points of contact with the nurses who inspire us all grounds me in the knowledge of the fantastic practice that goes on. What I do know though is that we all need to keep doing better. I believe that we need to persistently ensure that our voice is heard at policy/government level in ways that help the politicians to truly understand what it is we do everyday. I think that we can do this constructively without being defensive - and I think this because I have never heard any of these brilliant nurses that I
was referring to say anything other than that they want to continually improve the experiences of patients. One final event that I attended really made me think about my own experiences of nursing and how these relate to the debates that go on about compassion in nursing - I may write more about my personal thoughts as I am still reflecting! Professor Jill Maben presented her inaugural professorial lecture where she talked about her personal nursing journey and the research that she has done around compassion. What she has clearly demonstrated is that it is the environment, culture and other staffing issues that are most important in a nurse's expression of compassion in practice - those who work in cultures that allow them to enact their ideals are most likely to deliver compassionate care all the time.
So I finish by saying happy International Nurses' Day to all of you who are working in practice, educating students, and engaging in compassionate care in so many different ways. Let's all resolve to get our voices heard in constructive evidence-based ways that allow the discussions on compassion, values etc to evolve in ways that will make long-term differences to patient care and to the environments that nurses work in,
No comments:
Post a Comment