Health Minister Edwina Hart has paid tribute to the hard work and dedication of nurses and midwives in Wales for their efforts in improving patient care.
Speaking at the Chief Nursing Officer’s Showcase Conference, Mrs Hart will point to new measures introduced in the past year for the benefit of patients and staff.
The measures include:
- The roll-out of the recommendations of Free to Lead, Free to Care, including to new national uniform, food and drink charts, protected meal times for patients and new cleaning standards and certificates for cleaners;
- The Post Registration Career Framework for Nurses in Wales to provide guidance to nurses to help them develop fulfilling careers within the NHS in Wales and support modernising of services to improve patient care; and,
- A Community Nursing Strategy has been developed to strengthen community nursing.
The conference, which takes place every two years, aims to highlight the latest innovations and best practice in nursing to continually improve patient care and career opportunities for nurses and midwives.
This year’s conference, entitled Lighting the lamp in Wales, will commemorate the centenary of the death of Florence Nightingale and celebrate her inspiration on modern nursing. It will also recognise Wales’ own ‘heroine of the Crimea’ – Betsi Cadwaladr.
Edwina Hart said:
“Nurses and midwives have a central role in caring and supporting patients and increasing taking on more responsibility for managing that care, working closely with doctors.
“I am extremely pleased that the conference will remember Florence Nightingale and Betsi Cadwaladr who established the principles of nursing. I believe that these founding ideals remain true in the NHS today.
“The work that we have instigated in recent years to enhance the role of hospital ward sisters and charge nurses, and the introduction of protected meal times and improvements cleaning is improving patient care. It also demonstrates my commitment to staff. The ideas set out came from frontline staff who are best placed to identify what needs to be done to improve services.
“I recently presented awards to mental health and learning disability nurses for the innovations and new ways of working that have been developed by frontline staff.
“The conference enables staff to learn more about such excellence in clinical, educational and professional practice.”
The Chief Nursing Officer for Wales, Rosemary Kennedy, added:
“I see this conference as an opportunity to highlight the good work that goes on each and every day by nurses and midwives in Wales.
“This helps staff share ideas and gain inspiration from others.
“This year’s conference has again attracted academics and international speakers. As well as learning from them, I hope that they will be impressed with what we are doing in Wales.”
