‘Support nurses to ensure a bright future for every child’
STEVE FORD, EDITOR
07 October, 2022 By Ella Devereux
Efforts must be made to better understand the objections or concerns some nurses may have when it comes to digital transformation in healthcare, an exclusive Nursing Times conference has heard.
Laura Burrowes, clinical development lead at the digital health transformation service at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, said that “nurses being scared of change” was, at times, a “big issue” within the digital agenda.
“I think nurses being scared of change is a big issue sometimes”
Laura Burrowes
Her comments came during the Nursing Times Digital Forum on Wednesday – a two-day virtual event focusing on the digital agenda in nursing, which heard from those across the profession about the latest innovations and strategies in this field.
During a session on supporting nurse involvement in digital transformation, Ms Burrowes, who has a background in school nursing, highlighted a “disparity between trusts” in terms of digital competency and staff engagement.
She said some trusts have staff on the ground who are involved in digital transformation whereas others do not, and that this agenda could “still trickle down a lot more” to staff on the ground.
“I think nurses being scared of change is a big issue sometimes,” she explained.
Laura Burrowes
Leaders must therefore provide an “empathetic ear” to help understand and alleviate concerns the workforce may have, suggested Ms Burrowes.
“At the crux of every nurse is somebody who cares for the patients and wants to do best. And that is what they worry about the most,” she said.
“I think it is just sometimes understanding that, and putting the interventions or the engagement in [and] around that best suits them personally.”
Ms Burrowes also highlighted the differences between how acute and community settings have adapted to transformations, describing how things “are quicker to happen on the acute side”.
When she was working as a school nurse, she said that local authorities sometimes lacked communication between one another.
Additionally, if somebody was discharged from an acute setting, information “was not communicated”, she added.
Bridging the gap between acute and other settings was also a “massive agenda” for fellow panellist Dave Thomas, interim director of nursing strategy and transformation and chief nursing information officer across trusts in Somerset.
Mr Thomas described that as the expansion of integrated care systems (ICSs) takes place over the coming months, there will be more instances where acute, community and mental health come together in terms of sharing information.
Dave Thomas
The head of digital nursing at NHS England, Helen Balsdon, was also on the panel.
She highlighted that supporting nurses in digital transformation must be done at both an individual and national level.
In addition, she discussed the importance of building nursing networks to act as a support system through digital changes.
Ms Balsdon explained that over the last eight years that she has been working in digital, there has been increased supporting infrastructure to help nurses through digital changes.
“We’re seeing a growing movement of nurses with a real strong desire to get involved and make it different,” she said.
“And that may be longitudinal, or it may be for a specific piece of work, but we’re hearing it everywhere we go,” she said.
She told of her time as chief nursing information officer at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, where she set up a nursing informatic group which became a “safe place” to support nurses through changes being implemented at the trust.
“We were having a conversation about nursing and how we use technology to have great nursing practise,” Ms Balsdon noted.
“That was invaluable because it was bringing all the elements of technology, people and process together to really help us.”
As clinical leaders, being visible is important, Ms Balsdon stressed.
Helen Balsdon
“There is nothing quite like going out to a clinical area and going ‘show me, tell me what you are experiencing’,” she said.
“Because sometimes what we expect the technology to do, is not what the nurses see in practice.
“It is really important to go and have those conversations, find out what works, what is not working, check and challenge, just talk to whoever is using it.”
Much like panellists had discussed the day before at the Nursing Times Digital Forum, Ms Balsdon noted the importance of the upcoming Phillips Ives Nursing and Midwifery Review, which is set to be published next year and will determine the needs of the nursing and midwifery workforce to deliver healthcare in the digital age over the next five, 10 and 20 years.
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Alongside this large piece of work, there is “always more” that can be done to support nursing staff with digital transformation, Ms Balsdon said.
“It is important [that] we don’t just do it on a national level. It needs to be in individual organisations, and across those ICSs so that we really share more for those that we look after.
“I think it is really important that we keep sharing, we keep building and growing those networks, and having some of those open conversations about how we can work better together to improve the care we give.”
The inaugural Nursing Times Digital Forum was a two-day virtual event, held on 4 and 5 October, which focused on the digital agenda in nursing, and heard from those across the profession on the latest innovations and strategies in this field.
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