Becoming a Queen’s Nurse – by Molly Nyika

26th November 2015

It was exciting to be amongst a group of other like-minded nurses being recognised for the positive contribution to patient care and leadership.

This has given me the confidence to continue promoting best practice and to ensure that peers are motivated to consistently deliver effective preventative strategies and promote early interventions for children and families.

As a health visitors we execute the health visiting principles by searching and identifying recognised and unrecognised health needs, drawing and focusing on promoting resilience, and building on strengths.

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) now provides a wealth of information which is evidence based. This information is readily accessible in the day-to-day practice and it is a wonderful resource for SCPH Nurses.  Health visiting is a challenging profession as we work with families who are experiencing multiple adverse issues such as mental illness, substance misuse, debts, poor housing and domestic violence. It is therefore important to use expert professional judgement which is evidence-based in order to agree to appropriate levels of additional support, building on the parents’ strengths.

As a Queen’s Nurse , I feel privileged to have to act as an inspiring role model to peers and professional colleagues, as there are many  fantastic SCPHNs working tirelessly to improve patients’ outcomes.  In my opinion, strong leadership is needed to ensure that the public health workforce can balance national and local priorities, and deliver both the local and national outcomes. Therefore, it is important to have robust team processes in place for improved efficiency and to ensure safety for the clients, whilst also reflecting on experiences both positive and negative. Overall, the teams need to have sufficient expertise to deliver service specifications.

Therefore, my vision is for health visitors to have effective teams that deliver high quality care, achieving agreed outcomes and having robust systems in place to ensure positive service users’ experience.

 

Molly Nyika

Health Visiting Clinical Lead,

Specialist Community Public Health Nurse/ Heath visitor,

Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust