Safe staffing recommendations likely to be endorsed.

NZNO members and district health board (DHB) chief executives were poised to endorse the recommendations of the Safe Staffing/Healthy Workplaces Committee of Inquiry, as Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand went to press. NZNO was holding meetings throughout the country late last month and early this month, seeking members' endorsement of the recommendations. Industrial adviser Glenda Alexander said NZNO was strongly recommending endorsement--"it would be bad faith nor to recommend them"--and the feedback from meetings already held was that members were supporting them.

'Very good recommendations'

"They are very good recommendations. They might not meet all expectations but they will make a difference. Nothing will happen if they are not endorsed. The recommendations are building blocks for the future," Alexander said. The DHB chief executive (CEO) representative on the committee of inquiry, Tairawhiti DHB CEO Jim Green, said CEOs had received the recommendations well "We met late last month and they had a good understanding of the report. There was support in principle for the recommendations," he said.

Major role for directors of nursing

What had come out strongly was that directors of nursing saw a major role for themselves in the implementation of the recommendations, "which is very good", Green said. A series of meetings around the country early this month would be seeking formal endorsement from the CEOs and Green was confident they would be endorsed.

He said the recommendations could not be renegotiated and DHB CEOs could not take a "pick and mix" approach to them, ie they liked some and not others. But there could be different pathways used to implement them. "Once the report is endorsed, there needs to be further discussion on how we might set up some of the actions arising out of the implementation. Some of the recommendations allow for local implementation, but others require national co-ordination, and we need to talk about how to organise that."

Describing the committee's report as "a very useful document for us all", he said being part of the work of the committee of inquiry had been a great experience.

The major recommendation is for a safe staffing/healthy workplaces unit to be established within DHB New Zealand. The unit would have an advisory board of DHB CEOs and NZNO representatives. The 15 recommendations, all of which have a timeframe, aim to strengthen nursing and midwifery leadership, develop safe processes when staffing is unsafe, improve workplace culture, involve nurses and midwives in change, gather information on the national nursing and midwifery workforce, and support a national post-entry education framework.