A brand new nursing development programme has been launched by Teresa Chinn MBE RN in collaboration with Bristol-based care provider Brunelcare.
The Brunelcare Excellence in Nursing initiative aims to celebrate great Registered Nurse leadership in social care, provide development opportunities for Registered Nurses at Brunelcare and, most of all, challenge preconceptions around working as a Registered Nurse in social care.
The programme is closely aligned with the three key workforce priorities for nursing established by the Chief Nursing Officer for England, Ruth May – helping to enhance pride in the nursing profession, address workforce shortfalls, and enabling nurses to influence and lead change at every level.
Teresa Chinn MBE RN explained why she felt it was important to develop Brunelcare Excellence in Nursing:
“Now more than ever we need to support our nurses. We need to not only celebrate the amazing work that they do, but also provide them with opportunities to shift their focus and really achieve something wonderful.”
The first Brunelcare Excellence in Nursing cohort is made up of 14 Registered Nurses. Each of Brunelcare’s care home managers have nominated two team members who stand out as fantastic role models, or have made an outstanding contribution to care.
Lesley Hobbs, who manages the Deerhurst Care Home, said of her nominees:
“Both are fantastic role models clinically, personally & professionally with their knowledge, skills, positivity and person centred approach. I would be proud to have them represent Deerhurst & Brunelcare. We have a great team of nurses here, many of whom could have been nominated, but I feel these nurses will be great to lead in this project”
The nurses will attend regular training sessions to develop leadership and quality improvement skills, plus hear from an exciting range of guest speakers. At each session they will be set three challenges to go away and complete, each supporting different areas of development. Overarching all of this, the nurses have been asked to design an individual project of improvement for their particular area. The improvement can be clinical (medicines, care plans, wound care, nutrition) or non-clinical (leadership, wellbeing, environmental, accountability), but it has got to be new, evidence-based, and see an outcome within the space of a year.
Megan Stafford from Saffron Gardens Care Home is one of the Registered Nurses taking part in the programme (known as BEN for short):
“I feel as though nurses in the social care setting should be recognised more and the new BEN programme could be a fantastic opportunity for this. I’m nervous, but also excited to see what the programme has to offer, especially if my own thoughts and ideas can contribute to improving the clinical area within Brunelcare.”
Teresa Chinn MBE RN added:
“Brunelcare Registered Nurses are fantastic and it is an absolute pleasure to bring so many of them together to support and share the work that they do. Huge congratulations to Marsara Biggs, Megan Stafford, Rachel Jones, Louise Thompson, Richard Flossman, Fama Diop, Buba Touray, Rose David, Harvey Judovick, Jenny Radford, Amelia Thornton-Grimes Helen Orock, Nicola Cock and Arlene Magtoto for starting something new and being the 2021/22 cohort of the Brunelcare Excellence in Nursing Programme.”
One of the challenges the nurses have been set is to talk about their progress on social media, so follow #BrunelcareNurses on Twitter for all the latest updates!
