The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) launched a new Code for the UK’s 674,000 nurses and midwives to mark World Health Day. The updated version of the Code Standards of conduct, performance and ethics for nurses and midwives comes into effect on 1 May 2008.
The Code, which was launched with events held in Edinburgh, Belfast, Glamorgan and London, is the foundation of good nursing and midwifery practice and a key tool in safeguarding the health and wellbeing of the public. It has been updated to meet the ever changing requirements of today’s nurses and midwives and aims to clarify expectations; setting out for nurses and midwives what is expected of them as professionals, and showing members of the public what standard of care they can expect to receive. The amendments made were agreed upon after an extensive review process, including consultation with nurses, midwives and members of the public.
Rather than setting out pages of rules, which would be unsuitable considering the varied roles and individual patient needs, the pocket-sized Code provides a broad set of principles that nurses and midwives can apply to their own area of practise and the diverse environments in which patients receive care
April 11, 2008
The Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland (HPA) has announced that it has launched a breastfeeding educational CD resource for schools, to assist teachers in their approach to the sensitive topic of breastfeeding in a way that is both interesting and thought provoking. It said that breastfeeding had been recognised as a major public health issue and that it was vitally important that education about breastfeeding should start in childhood, particularly in Northern Ireland, where it said there was a strong bottle-feeding culture.
The resource aims to provide significant support to those involved in educating school children about the importance of breastfeeding to the health of mum and baby. It also sensitively tackles the need to change attitudes towards breastfeeding.
April 11, 2008
An independent inquiry commissioned by the King’s Fund has published results showing that the overwhelming majority of births in England are safe, despite growing pressures on maternity services. Stillbirths, infant mortality rates and maternal deaths directly related to pregnancy or birth have fallen or remained stable over the past ten years, while birth rates and the complexity of some pregnancies has risen.
However, the publication also states that the lack of a systematic approach to ensuring safety across maternity services is creating unnecessary risks. It reports that there is an insufficient focus on maternity services and safety by trust boards; staff are overburdened with too many separate and complex guidelines; tension between obstetricians and midwives is leading to problems with team working & communication; and, often, there are an inadequate numbers of staff with the right skills on duty.
The inquiry calls for a range of practical improvements and identifies the key factors in improving safety as: stronger governance at board level, better team & multidisciplinary working, more training in safety, including training on the labour ward, and good management of staffing levels & skill mix.
April 4, 2008
The Health and Social Care Bill had its second reading debate in the House of Lords this week. The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds welcomed the health in pregnancy grant but called for the grant to be based on the number of children rather than on the pregnancy itself. He also raised concern that the grant remains a universal grant, as it is now, throughout its course through Parliament.
April 4, 2008
Ann Keen, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Health, this week responded to a Parliamentary Question about the proportion of women who opted to have a caesarean section in the last year for which figures are available.
“In 2005-06 there were 593,400 deliveries in National Health Service hospitals in England. Of these 139,449 were by caesarean section. Elective caesarean accounted for 9.3 per cent (12,969) of the total.”
April 4, 2008
