Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare Professionals conference

NHS Connecting for Health holds its annual Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare Professionals conference in London next week (17 June). Julie Tindale, NHS CFH national clinical lead for midwifery, and Barbara Stuttle, national clinical lead for nursing, outline their roles and what they are hoping to discuss at the event.

Julie Tindale, NHS CFH national clinical lead for midwifery

Julie Tindale: I am currently a clinical information systems manager at the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, where my 28 years of midwifery experience is useful when it comes to assessing systems performance.

Since joining NHS Connecting for Health in February, many people have asked why I took on my new role. As the national clinical lead for midwifery, I want to engage with midwives and find out how technology can enable them to deliver the best possible care to mother and baby. Their comments need to be understood by programme managers so that they can move the agenda forward.

National IT systems are delivering for midwives and the mothers and babies they care for. The NHS Number is the key identifier of a patient. Since 2002, NHS Numbers have been allocated automatically, once a midwife has notified the Central Issue System of the birth. This may seem like a standard thing, but before 2002 there was a lengthy paperwork process, which could take up to 42 days.

The NHS Number allows clinicians to track the medical journey of even a very small, premature baby and to record all the care it receives. It is also a pre-cursor for all future care and links into other NHS CFH systems, where it significantly improves safety by ensuring patients are identified correctly.

I believe that midwives support the ultimate aims of NHS CFH. We are working with strategic health authorities and the Supervision of Midwives Network to engage with as many midwives as possible. Their views will be taken to the Chief Nursing Officer and the Royal College of Midwives. The viewpoints of people working on the front line need to be addressed and we plan to update our website about developments that affect them.

The number of babies delivered each year will continue to increase but the number of midwives delivering them is unlikely to rise at the same rate. I would like to see technology assist the job by speeding up lengthy administrative processes. We also need to improve the technology that is provided and not overcomplicate systems. And I want community midwives to have access to mobile technology and systems to help them do the job as quickly as they would in hospital.

If you plan to come to the Nursing, Midwifery and Health Professionals Conference, please tell me your points of view. I want to help put quality at the forefront of the care we offer to the millions of mothers and babies we look after every year.

Barbara Stuttle, national clinical lead for nursing

Barbara Stuttle: We’re particularly interested in encouraging staff to consider how new technology, such as laptops with instant access to electronic patient records, will impact on professional practice. How will current working practices need to change and what new skills might have to be developed?

That goes beyond IT training. Nurses in particular will need to undertake data analysis and use this to support long-term healthcare planning in partnership with the patient. My personal goal is for every community nurse to have some form of portable hardware within the next three to four years. Nurses need to be professionally prepared for the changes this could bring.

In pilots in Nottingham, for example, nurses reported that using mobile devices to access patient information and online directories of practice enabled them to plan their time better, reduced stress and made treatment easier. Diabetic patients in the pilots reported benefits from having direct access to their records and that they were able to better monitor their illness.

As professionals, we have also got to start making decisions about how tools and systems will be standardised. This is another topic we will be discussing at the conference.

I do not envisage that hardware will ever replace nurses, midwives and allied health professionals. But we do have to recognise the crucial part that technology plays in supporting us in delivering better, safer patient care.

Since the beginning, NHS CFH has engaged regularly with nurses, midwives and allied health professionals via organisations such as the Royal Colleges of Midwives and Nursing and the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Staff who are working with patients on a daily basis can be more difficult to reach, but it is vital that NHS CFH communicates with them directly, both to gather their input and to promote the benefits of the programme.

Some people are fearful about new technology, whilst others are looking forward to embracing the benefits it brings. I remember that when care planning was introduced in hospitals, there was a great deal of negativity before people started to recognise the benefits. All change can be painful as well as exciting.

We need to build on the lessons learned from pilots and to continue to keep the channels of communication open with frontline staff. That is the only way we can guarantee to deliver better, safer healthcare for all.

The NHS CFH annual Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare Professionals event takes place at Westminster Central Hall in London on Tuesday 17 June.

It is titled Cultural Change in Professional Practice – The Information Revolution and will provide an opportunity for delegates to discuss how they are using IT systems in their roles and to find out more about the National Programme for IT in the NHS.

Chief nursing officer Chris Beasley and joint NHS CFH clinical leads Susan Osborne and Barbara Stuttle are among the speakers. To find out more and book a place, go to: www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/engagement/clinical/news/nmhpconf2008