PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCY NORTHERN IRELAND LSA BRIEFING

Transcription

1 PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCY NORTHERN IRELAND LSA BRIEFING December 2009 Children s Cancer Month 1 31 December 2009 MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM VERENA AND JULIE AT THE LSA OFFICE to the following midwives who have been appointed as supervisors of midwives within the Public Health Agency LSA during 2009: Francis Cooper Lettie Coulter Hazel Inglis Audrey Moore Irene McKay Gwyneth Peden Lorna Harper Joan Moffett Zoe Edwards Barbara Manson Western Health and Social Care Trust Western Health and Social Care Trust Western Health and Social Care Trust Western Health and Social Care Trust Northern Health and Social Care Trust Northern Health and Social Care Trust Northern Health and Social Care Trust Southern Health and Social Care Trust South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust Northern Trust launches its Maternity Strategy The Northern Trust launched its 3 year Maternity Strategy on 7 December For further details contact Mary Maxwell, HoM&SoM at: mary.maxwell@northerntrust.hscni.net. 1

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3 Jim Stewart, Chairman NHSCT; Shauna Carbarry, Service User; Marie Kyne, contact SoM; Mary Maxwell, Head of Midwifery & Gynaecology and SoM; Rosemary Kerr, Parent craft midwife; Sinead O'Kane, Lead Midwife& SoM; Margaret Gordon, Assistant Director and Dr Robert McMillen, Clinical Director Obs/Gynae. The new maternity strategy has been developed with the purpose of achieving a modernised maternity service which is mother and baby centred and is benchmarked against best practice standards. The strategy outlines six core principles of the new, modernised maternity service. Promoting pregnancy as a normal life event, striving continuously to improve within a learning culture, providing a comprehensive range of maternity services, reducing inequalities, ensuring a seamless service and being women-centred are all vital to the strategy s success. Under the new strategy a clear midwifery leadership structure has been implemented. Four lead midwives have been appointed, along with a team of senior midwives. There are plans in place to appoint a consultant midwife by 2010 to enhance midwifery leadership, with a view to developing midwifery models of care and offering a range of options to women who have lower risk pregnancies. The midwifery team in union with the Clinical Director and the team of consultants will be responsible for training, developing and delivering a safe, quality, caring service inline with the strategy. The improvements in services have been reflected by the Northern Trust s placement in the top 25% of UK hospital maternity services, when viewed against almost all of the recognised major performance indicators. Taken from : ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3

4 LSA DATABASE UPDATE. 1. Uploading of 2010/2011 ITPS from LSA Database to the NMC From next year the LSA database will concurrently upload this year's ITPs (2009/10) and next year's ITPs (2010/11) to the NMC. What this means is that when an ITP for next year ( ) is entered onto the LSA database by a SoM between January 2010 and March 2010 it will be immediately uploaded to the NMC, just as if it was an ITP for the current year. This is a change from the previous procedure, when the 'new' ITPs were held until the end of March and then released to the NMC. The practical implication is that any errors with the ITPs will be reported quicker by the NMC, rather than just at the end of March so any errors can be corrected more quickly by the SoM. There will still be an absolute deadline for entering the 2010/11 ITPs, after which it will no longer be possible to enter or modify ITPs for 2009/10. It is the SoMs responsibility to enter the ITP onto the LSA database. There will be no requirement to send paper (hard copy) ITPs to the LSA anymore. 2. Supervisor of Midwives status There will be no SoM tick box on next year's 2010/2011 ITP form. Recording of the SoM status will be done by the LSA administrator on the relevant midwife record. Also, in order to avoid confusion, the Supervisor tick box is to be removed from the ITP History page. 3. Deleting ITP entries from ITP History page Previously it was possible for SoMs to delete ITP entries on the ITP History page; however this is now restricted to LSAMO and Administrator users. SoMs can still revoke an ITP if it the midwife has moved to another trust or is no longer practising (this is done automatically if the midwife's record is deactivated) but the revoked ITP will remain in the ITP History. Please see next page for an information sheet giving full details of how to enter ITPs in the LSAdb for

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6 Guidance on professional conduct for nursing and midwifery students published September 2009 Hyperlink: Standards for medicine management At the end of October 2009 the NMC discovered that the full online version of the Standards for medicine management had omitted Standard 23 (Section 8 Complementary and alternative therapies) and replaced it with a duplicate Standard 21 (Section 6 Disposal). The rest of the full online version was found to be correct. The online version of the Standards for medicine management contains an index, the short booklet version and the full version. Only the latter section contained the omission. The issue was amended immediately. Further investigation revealed that a computer error occurred when the standards were uploaded to our website on 6 July A glitch allowed an incorrect version of the standards to slip through. The NMC have issued advice on the website that recommends anyone who downloaded the full online version of the Standards for medicine management between 6 July 2009 and 27 October 2009, destroy that copy and replace it with the current online version or order a hard copy using our online ordering system. Standards for medicines management - full content/ summary booklet [PDF] Published: February 2008 (reprinted August 2008). These standards replace 'Guidelines for the administration of medicine'. 6

7 NMC Annual Midwifery Conference 2009 Modern supervision in action; supervisors, midwives and women working in partnership The NMC Annual Midwifery Conference 2009 took place on 21 st October 2009 in Belfast. Presentations and photos can be accessed via: Personal feedback on Day 1 of the 2009 RCM conference By Emma Carver, Supervisor of Midwives, Rotherham Foundation Trust (with thanks) Overall an enjoyable day. The day was very busy with little free time to look at exhibitions or network with midwives from other areas. An informative session by Tim Draycott (obstetrician) on the value of multidisciplinary training. Teams that work together should train together! Emphasised the importance of effective team work and communication. The midwife presentations in the concurrent sessions were inspirational. It was refreshing to hear about the implementation of good practice / new ideas by midwives. These included: A student midwife setting up a Guidance team to support other students. Midwife involvement in providing multidisciplinary education. Development of a multidisciplinary critical care course. PEARLS study (longitudinal study on perineal repair) the trials and tribulations of setting up a research project. For me, the most interesting and relevant part of the day was a 15 minute session on the development of the Labour Ward Coordinator master class (C. Paeglis, J Green). In my view, until you have been a labour ward coordinator you cannot appreciate the stresses of the role. We are excellent jugglers and fire fighters. We balance all the labour ward activity and sort out all the problems, we often act reactively not proactively. I feel it is time we invested in our labour ward coordinators and value them for the role they take. The labour ward master class enables coordinators to step back and look at their practice. It gives them the tools to manage their stress and explore different ways of working. I feel fortunate where I work. With support of our Head of Midwifery and Labour Ward Manager we have recently changed the way we work. Our L/W coordinators are now supernumerary. We are allowed to coordinate. We are available to support all members of our multidisciplinary team and the women in our care. We CAN work proactively NOT reactively. This has to improve the care we give, the safety of mums and babies whilst allowing all members of the team to develop to their full potential. Instead of being jugglers / fire fighters, we are in control, we are the captains of our ship. 7

8 See RCM, NHS Choices and NI Direct websites to keep updated re Swine Flu 8

9 The Pregnancy Book The Pregnancy book has been revised and will be given free to expectant mothers and parents in England. By providing in-depth support, useful contact information and advice on rights and benefits, the book is an excellent addition to the support provided by maternity teams. The book s content has been updated to reflect new policies, changing social trends and advice and guidance. The design has been modernised to reflect a more contemporary style. Page 74 of the new edition explains the role of the Supervisor of midwives as: A supervisor of midwives is an experienced midwife who has had extra training and education to assist and support midwives in providing the best quality maternity care. Supervisors of midwives aim to make sure that you receive the best guidance and information about the right type of care for you. They are there to help and support you if you are having any problems with your care, or if you feel that your wishes and requests are not being considered. The telephone number for your supervisor of midwives should be in your pregnancy information details (or hand-held notes), or you can call your hospital s labour ward/birthing room or your local birth centre. Discussing issues with the supervisor of midwives will not affect your care or influence how you are further supported in your pregnancy, birth and aftercare. The whole document and its individual chapters can be downloaded from the Department of Health website at: nce/dh_ Safeguarding Children and Young People e-learning Developed by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health with DH e-learning for Healthcare, this free e-learning resource helps address the training gaps relating to safeguarding children and young people, recently identified by the Care Quality Commission. It can be accessed at: 9

10 Iolanthe Midwifery Trust Midwives Awards The Iolanthe Midwifery Trust offers Midwives Awards to individuals who wish to undertake periods of professional education and development to enable them to improve their practice. Applicants must be able to demonstrate that the programme undertaken is relevant to midwifery and will lead to improvements in care through practice, education or management studies. Previous awards have enabled midwives to fund courses which increase their academic status and/or help them develop specialist skills. These awards also enable midwives to attend conferences to present their work. The awards are open to individuals registered as midwives in the UK and the closing date is 29th January For further information visit: English, of interest When new mums need help most New research released today has revealed that, after the understandable flurry in the first eight weeks of motherhood, the period when first-time mums have the most questions about their baby s development, can be pin-pointed to five months and one week after they have given birth. Link to full press release: The NHS Baby LifeCheck was piloted in selected Sure Start Children s Centres during spring 2008 as part of the NHS Choices Learning Network. The pilot sites all had trained facilitators who were able to support parents to navigate the NHS Baby LifeCheck and ensure access for families whose first language was not English, or who had difficulty reading. The Department of Health commissioned a rigorous independent evaluation of the pilots, which largely involved parent focus groups. You can read the Executive Summary of the Baby LifeCheck evaluation report by clicking on the link below: Download NHS Early Years LifeCheck Evaluation Executive Summary (PDF, 60K) NHS Baby LifeCheck was rolled out to 83 of the most deprived areas of England in October 2008 as NHS Early Years LifeCheck. It has now been redesigned and launched nationally in August

11 ChiMat Knowledge Update (English, of interest) These weekly updates highlight the latest additions to the national Child and Maternal Health Observatory ChiMat website. The resources below and more are available at If you would like your own copy, go to the ChiMat website and sign up for the e-bulletin. For any other information contact Victoria Richardson: Routine pre-pregnancy health promotion for improving pregnancy outcomes [Intervention Review] Background: A number of potentially modifiable risk factors are known to be associated with poor pregnancy outcomes. These include smoking, drinking excess alcohol, and poor nutrition. Routine health promotion (encompassing education, advice and general health assessment) in the prepregnancy period has been proposed for improving pregnancy outcomes by encouraging behavioural change, or allowing early identification of risk factors. While results from observational studies have been encouraging, this review examines evidence from randomised controlled trials of preconception health promotion. Trends in Down's syndrome live births and antenatal diagnoses in England and Wales from 1989 to 2008: analysis of data from the National Down Syndrome Cytogenetic Register Objectives To describe trends in the numbers of Down s syndrome live births and antenatal diagnoses in England and Wales from 1989 to DCSF: Children s Minister: New online resources for up to 5 million mums, dads, carers and grandparents Dawn Primarolo, minister for Children, Young People and Families, today announced three new pilot projects to help up to five million mums, dads, carers and grandparents get important parenting information support and guidance. The Parent Know How Innovation Fund has created the three pilot projects, as recent research showed that 80 per cent of parents reported they were satisfied or very satisfied with the information or support provided by existing Parent Know How services. These latest additions to these services will launch in January and will join a range of other telephone helpline and innovative services available to mums, dads, carers and grandparents to ensure that wherever they look for information, they receive coherent advice from respected sources. Discussion group for bereaved families FSID's new discussion group for families who have suffered the sudden and unexpected death of a baby. Location, location, location: Making choice of place of birth a reality This report reveals the findings of research commissioned by the National Childbirth Trust (NCT) to determine how many women have a choice of where to have their baby and whether choice has become more available in recent years. It also examines the importance of choice of place of birth, the government policies supporting it and reasons why that choice may not be available to some women. The NCT makes recommendations to stakeholders to increase the options women have when choosing where to have their baby. Previous caesarean section and the risk of postpartum maternal complications and adverse neonatal outcomes in future pregnancies Journal of Perinatology (2009) 29, ; doi: /jp ; published online 23 July 2009 Objective: To assess maternal postpartum and neonatal outcomes associated with previous method of delivery. 11

12 Weekly electronic update of the RCN Research and Development Co-ordinating Centre A fully formatted version of the weekly electronic RCN bulletin is available via the Research and Development News and Events section of the RCN website at: The weekly is sent directly to over 4,000 contacts worldwide, with the invitation for receivers to forward it to others. Recent articles / news within it include: 1: RCN Research Society 2009 annual Winifred Raphael Memorial Lecture "Nursing, Workforce and Health Outcomes: Historical Reflections and Research" by Professor Anne-Marie Rafferty, Dean of Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, King's College London The notes from this lecture are now available on the website. The webcast will be available shortly at: 2: Smith, N. et al (2009), "Identifying research priorities for health care priority setting: a collaborative effort between managers and researchers" To date there has been relatively little published about how research priorities are set, and even less about methods by which decision-makers can be engaged in defining a relevant and appropriate research agenda. We report on a recent effort in British Columbia to have researchers and decision-makers jointly establish an agenda for future research into questions of resource allocation. This is an open-access article at: 12

13 STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT New programme of Clinical Guidelines 23 rd Wave New programme of Short Clinical Guidelines 23 rd Wave Outlined below are the Institute s latest programme of topics that will be developed by the Centre for Clinical Practice; your organisation is invited to register as a stakeholder for appropriate topics. The Department of Health has asked the Institute to develop and publish the following Guidelines. Antibiotics for neonatal infection (Clinical Guideline) Autism in adults (Clinical Guideline) Headaches (Clinical Guideline) Incontinence in neurological disease (Clinical Guideline) Neutropenic sepsis (Clinical Guideline) Pain and bleeding in early pregnancy (Clinical Guideline) Peripheral arterial disease (Clinical Guideline) Psoriasis (Clinical Guideline) Anaphylactic episode (Short Clinical Guideline) Hyperglycaemia (Short Clinical Guideline) Peritoneal dialysis (Short Clinical Guideline) The Institute is committed to involving national organisations that represent patients or professionals in the development of clinical practice guidance. In order to participate fully, however, an organisation must register as a stakeholder for a specific topic. Further information on how stakeholder organisations are involved in guideline development is provided in the booklet The Guideline Development Process An Overview for Stakeholders, the Public and the NHS, which is available from the NICE website: The guideline development process If your organisation wishes to register an interest in any guideline topic, please complete the form on the NICE website: Stakeholder registration form (includes providers and commissioners of health services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland) Please note that the names of all organisations registered as stakeholders for each guideline will be posted on the NICE website. The full contact details of registered stakeholders will also be sent to the team(s) developing the guidelines for which they have registered so that the organisations can be contacted during the development of the guideline. 13

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15 England and Wales of interest On 19 November The National Reporting and Learning Service (NRLS), a division of the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) published strengthened guidelines for NHS organisations on Being open, which describe the importance of open and effective communication with patients. In 2005, the NRLS issued guidance on communicating effectively with patients when things go wrong. Following changes to the NHS since the launch, the NRLS has reviewed the guidance and developed a new Being open framework. The new framework is a best practice guide for all healthcare staff, including boards, clinicians and PALS. It explains the principles behind Being open and outlines how to communicate with patients, their families and carers following harm. Open and honest communication with patients is at the heart of health care. Research has shown that being open when things go wrong can help patients and staff to cope better with the after effects of a patient safety incident. Healthcare staff may be fearful of upsetting the patient, saying the wrong or admitting liability. This guidance and the associated actions outlined in the Alert, provide reassurance that Being open is the right thing to do, and encourage NHS boards to make a public commitment to openness, honesty and transparency. The alert is attached. Further information and the full Being open framework are available from If you have any question about this information please beingopen@npsa.nhs.uk. 15

16 Staley K. (2009) Summary Exploring Impact: Public involvement in NHS, public health and social care research, INVOLVE, Eastleigh. INVOLVE is a national advisory group funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to promote and support public involvement in NHS, public health and social care research and development. This is a summary of a literature review that aimed to increase knowledge of the evidence of the impact of public involvement on health and social care research. The project was commissioned by INVOLVE. The project involved carrying out a structured review of the literature obtained from a collection of articles at INVOLVE, a systematic search of electronic databases, and requests for grey literature sent out to INVOLVE s networks. The findings from this literature review have been summarised under the following eleven themes: 1. Impact on the research agenda 2. Impact on research design and delivery 3. Impact on research ethics 4. Impact on the public involved 5. Impact on researchers 6. Impact on research participants 7. Impact on the wider community 8. Impact on community organisations 9. Impact on implementation and change 10. Factors that influence the impact of involvement 11. Reflections on assessing the impact of involvement Strengthening the evidence base Based on this review the strength of the evidence base around the impact of involvement could be improved by: producing guidance on how to report on the impact of involvement in journal articles and reports finding more consistent and robust ways of assessing impact helping researchers and the public to find the most useful ways of telling the story of involvement. For further information please read the full report: Staley K. (2009) Exploring Impact: Public involvement in NHS, public health and social care research. INVOLVE, Eastleigh. This is available to download from the InVOLVE website To obtain a hard copy please contact the INVOLVE Coordinating Centre admin@invo.org.uk or

17 HEALTH EVENTS DECEMBER World AIDS Day 1 31 Children's Cancer Month 3 International Day of Persons with a Disability 4 Carer's Rights Day 9 Personal Budgets and patient choice 10 Human Rights Day 26/12 02/02 Festival of Winter Walks Se Maternity services at critical point midwives say - story published 26 November 2009 Should dads be in the delivery room? - story published 25 November 2009 MS process slowed by giving birth, Belgian doctors say - story published 24 November 2009 Report dismays breast milk lobby - story published 8 November 2009 Fetal heart rate monitor warning - story published 6 November 2009 Babies cry in mothers tongue - story published 5 November 2009 Call to improve sick baby units - story published 4 November

18 Northern Ireland Press Cuttings Maternity works starts at Hospital (Craigavon Area Hospital) Tyrone Times Vaccination is Important for Pregnant Women Ballymena chronicle Swine Flu Mum s Baby Comes Home News Letter Swine Flu Jab Clinics for Pregnant Women Ballymena Guardian Swine flu Jab for Pregnant Mums North Belfast News Third of Mums left alone and worried during birth Belfast Telegraph Judge lifts name ban in embryo challenge Irish News Baby Boom to see North s population pass 2 million Irish News Coma Mum Wakes Five Weeks After Son s Birth Belfast Telegraph New mothers feel most anxious five months after giving birth (SEE PAGE 5 FOR LINK TO PRESS RELEASE) A study carried out for the Department of Health has found that a new mother is most anxious about her baby five months and one week after giving birth. Researchers found that this period was when mothers had most questions about their baby and was also the time mothers risked feeling more isolated as the initial flurry of visits from family and friends subsided. The Daily Telegraph 18

19 Third of mothers 'abandoned' during or after labour A survey by website netmums.com claims a third of women are left alone during labour or just after giving birth. Half of the respondents said they did not have access to a midwife after giving birth. Sally Russell, the website's co-founder, said; "The results should demonstrate to the Government just how stretched maternity services are. Our members want and deserve one-to-one care from midwives but they are not getting this and are left alone and feeling abandoned during labour, and especially in the vital postnatal period." Fathers to attend baby classes Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Daily Mirror, The Sun In a speech to the Royal College of Midwives, shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley will say that a Conservative government would oblige fathers-to-be to attend at least one antenatal class with their child's mother. Women would still be able to attend classes on their own if the presence of the father made them uncomfortable however. Recent evidence has shown that inexperienced new fathers were more likely to rush their pregnant partner to hospital at the first signs of her giving birth, spending many unnecessary hours on maternity wards. Daily Telegraph 19

20 LSA DIARY WHAT S ON.. Event December January 2010 Contact SoMs meetings Thur Seminar Room, Gransha House, Londonerry New SoMs meetings Mon MEC, Erne Hospital, Enniskillen Unit/Trust SoMs meetings Unit 4-6 weekly Joint (Trust wide) 3-4 monthly Workshops for SoMs As per local agreement Wed Conference Room 5, Linenhall St, Belfast As per local agreement Thur Plum Room, The Villa, Holywell site, Antrim February March April May As per local agreement Tues Committee Room 1, County Hall, Ballymena As per local agreement Date and venue tbc As per local agreement As per local agreement Root Cause Analysis Homebirth Investigations LSA NI conferences Mon 22 Antrim Enterprise Agency Medicines 20

21 Midwifery Supervision Review tool for NI PHA development group (with NIPEC) LSA Annual Report to NMC Review Tool for LSA in NI published and ready for SoMs to use Interview Day for prospective SoMs Prepare for 2010/11 intake National guidelines for SoMs New PoSoM course Prepare for 2010/11 intake Supervision of Midwives Guideline Development Group Tues 1 Meeting 2 Revise draft guidelines CR1, County Hall, Ballymena Tues 5 Finalise draft guidelines CR6, County Hall, Ballymena LSA Audits Thur 28 Craigavon LSA (PHA) publishes new Supervision of Midwives guidelines Tue 2 Causeway Wed 3 The Erne Meeting Wed 3 Antrim Thur 4 Altnagelvin Thur 11 The Mater Fri 12 RJMH 21

22 Thur 25 Lagan Valley & Downe NMC Review of LSA (none in 2009/10) Fri 26 The Ulster PHA monthly LSA briefing (SoMs newsletter) LSA webpage for NI LSA conference (UK wide) To be launched following PHA agreement Thur 22 Nottingham 22

23 LSA Contact Details Verena Wallace LSA Midwifery Officer Public Health Agency, Room G40, County Hall 182 Galgorm Road, BALLYMENA, BT42 1QB Tel: Fax : Mobile: verena.wallace@hscni.net Sec: julie.kennoway@hscni.net Tel: CONTACT SUPERVISORS OF MIDWIVES DETAILS Maternity Unit Contact SoM Altnagelvin Margaret MacCombe margaret.maccombe@westerntrust.hscni.net The Erne Lorna Moore lorna.moore@westerntrust.hscni.net Causeway Karen Graham karen.graham@northerntrust.hscni.net Antrim Marie Kyne marie.kyne@northerntrust.hscni.net Craigavon Patricia McStay patricia.mcstay@southerntrust.hscni.net Daisy Hill Anne Donnelly anne.donnelly@southerntrust.hscni.net The Mater Joan Wells joan.wells@belfasttrust.hscni.net Royal Jubilee Margaret Rogan margaret.rogan@belfasttrust.hscni.net The Ulster Alison Orr alison.orr@setrust.hscni.net Lagan Valley (& The Downe) Zoe Boreland zoe.boreland@setrust.hscni.net 23