Re: Effective Practice???

[Guest guest]

This is very sad , and particularly sad to hear that it is happening in an Early Implementer Site - supposedly 'beacons of good practice.' I wonder if this instance has been brought to the notice of DH?I was in a research advisory group meeting on Monday, where one part of the discussion was about staff retention, which should surely be high on everyone's agenda now. What was identified was called a 'last straw' syndrome - not one thing alone that provokes a departure, but a catalogue of grinding-down issues, until eventually one thing finally leads health visitors to say - no more, and to give in their notice. Interesting to see that the same term was used by your colleague below.I do think things are improving, in that I am hearing increasing examples of positive practice and management (whereas a couple of years, these 'bad practice' examples were all that anyone heard), but how can we change things in the 'hard core' of problem areas? What are the incentives that would encourage honesty about genuine problems and a will to change them, and discourage the kind of over-egging claims that must have been made to become an Early Implementer, despite these difficulties? Are there perverse incentives in place that need to be removed, or is it all part of the general dishonesty and lack of integrity that seems to pervade the top level of our society - bankers come to mind?best wishesOn 11 Jul 2012, at 14:24, Bidmead wrote: Dear all, I received a really sad email today form a wonderful, experienced practitioner that made me quite angry and frustrated. I want to share this with you and wonder how it reflects the situation in other PCTs or the new organisations that are being formed out there in the community. The HV who would like to remain anonymous writes the following: 'I left Health Visiting in October after 19 years, feeling absolutely exhausted following yet another restructure. In the end I was relocated to a totally new area... new base/ PFI building, even further to travel........I did not have enough chairs or desks for full time staff, we had no room for several hundred family files from the other base( which had been condemned). Instead we were expected to fetch the files from this locked base as we required them, about 5 miles away. This area is considered very deprived with a very transient population. Several staff left for other areas, once they knew of the restructure and never set foot in my area again. Our admin support was regularly pulled from us to cover other areas. We shared a large open office space with about 70 other staff from social care, Learning Disabilities and District Nursing service. I might add that the upstairs floor was totally unsuited for purpose. Downstairs was a state of the art ..all singing all dancing office. It was not unusual to find the phones playing up and all ringing at random or together. The photo copier, printer and fax for everybody's use was always out of order. These were very regular occurrence. In my team of skill mix, I had some real gems........ hard working and focused. Others without boundaries. New birth clinics were the norm contrary to the core service requirements undertaken by ill equiped community staff nurses and nursery staff and without an antenatal contact. Often these babies were several weeks old and others failed to turn up. That was the context of my introduction to practice when I arrived to take up the role of team co-ordinator/ Practice Teacher. There were serious professional practice issues which managers over the years failed to deal with and a reluctance to support me with activating our Capabilities policy. The last straw for me was when managers decided to locate two student HVs with me, to provide support for and provide support for another staff member 7 miles away. The environment was unsafe and no way could I take the students knowing what it was like, I needed time to make improvements. The Practice Teachers met with managers and the university, but only lip service was given to the concerns, in my view. I wrote to the powers that be and got nowhere. We lost several Practice Teachers as a direct result of the restructuring. A sandwich programme consisting of 2 days was drawn up at Uni to update experienced HV's on facilitating the student HV's. This is an early implementer site for the roll out of the new HV plan and a social enterprise!!' How can we keep our most experienced and valued HVs when they are up against this sort of environment? Best wishes, Cowleysarahcowley183@...http://myprofile.cos.com/S124021COn

[Guest guest]

I have constantly flagged up the need for adequate and properly equipped office accommodation. Over the past 20 years I've seen numerous reorganisations that came with funding for new office premises and upgrading for managerial and admin staff whilst the practioners on the ground left coping with poor quality premises. I hasten to add that not all HV teams were affected but that in itself created inequity between teams. It causes stress at work with heat, noise and overcrowding issues and leads to team members being irritable with each other and having less patience generally at work with all aspects of responsibilities. Why is it that nurses, HVs and AHPs always get the short straw. In the armed forces the mark of a good leader is the attention to the welfare and comfort of the men before the officers

see to their own needs. Look after the troops and get good results.

Lund-Lack