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March 2024 - Volume 3. Issue 2.
Welcome,
The Spring Budget 2024 was announced this month, and with it we have £3.4bn more reasons why the digital clinical leadership is needed in the NHS.
There are some ambitious goals, but it highlights more than ever - nurses and midwives need to use their voices to say how we utilise digital and data to transform care!
The Chief Nursing Information Officer (CNIO) team vision has a focus on people first – our research has shown the inconsistency with CNIO roles including variation in responsibilities, reporting and seniority.
Over the next year we’re looking at creating a career pathway to define the roles required, and the knowledge, skills, education and training needed to help us reduce the unwarranted variation and help those around us understand what we do.
Then - how do we harness data? The launch of Towards a unified vision of nursing and midwifery documentation, was a positive step to creating principles what good, structured data should look like. Now our aim is continue the work that will enable our professions to work smarter and faster across care settings by working towards standardisation and highlight best practice.
One of the notable talking points from the budget was investment in artificial intelligence – my goal is to ensure that nursing and midwifery stay at the forefront of this innovation by using informed decision making to understand it’s practical potential.
To make these decisions we need to build our research knowledge base, so my team are doing more to bring about more nursing and midwifery led research on digital. One area we will be focusing on is supporting digital nurses and midwives to write up your good digital practices into articles for publication.
There has been a lot of restructuring over the past year as we create the new NHS England - one of the advantages of the changes is having Jules Gudgeon, National Chief Midwifery Information Officer (CMiDO) as part of team CNIO.
I'm delighted to have Jules perspective and experiences leading digital in midwifery, and since we began working together last year we've held a united front committed to growing the collaborative relationship between nurses and midwives and make digital mainstream across the professions.
In this months bulletin, we invited Victoria Mustafa and Sam Neville as guests to share their insights into bringing together nurses and midwives to share their experiences on providing united leadership.
Please do have a read of the article and let us know your thoughts!
Helen Balsdon, Interim Chief Nursing Information Officer (CNIO) for England
Sam Neville, Regional CNIO for East of England, and CNIO for Mid and South Essex NHS Trust
Victoria Mustafa (Maternity ICB Programme Manager for South West London, and Digital Midwife
Harnessing the Relationship Between Nurses and Midwives to Drive Digital Transformation
The different experiences offered by nurses and midwives brings wider clinical representation in decision making.
In our CNIO Spotlight we spoke with Victoria Mustafa and Sam Neville as they shared their experiences of bringing the two professions together where they work.
In this article we talk about:
getting involved and building up networks made up of a diverse range of digital clinical leadership,
how nurses and midwives working together to share learning,
how to keep connected to your communities when faced with geographic distances,
tips to increase collaboration,
the end goal shared by both digital nurses and midwives.
Have a read: CNIO Spotlight - Digital Nursing Community - FutureNHS Collaboration Platform
What's happening across the community?
Please find a selection of activities happening across the country to digitise health and social care.
Innovative Student Nurse Nominated for National Award
Congratulations to Amy Grant, a student nurse at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Trust (NCIC) for being shortlisted for the innovation award at the Student Nursing Times.
We’re delighted digital ingenuity is being recognised, along with trusts extending opportunities to students to undertake placements focused in digital transformation.
Find out more: Innovative student nurse nominated for national award :: North Cumbria Integrated Care (ncic.nhs.uk)
Nurse and Midwife Led Research
At Rewired 2024, Interim CNIO Helen Balsdon called on the importance of getting more nurse and midwife led research published.
If you are interested in learning more about how to get involved, visit our CNIO priorities page to find out more: CNIO Priorities - Digital Nursing Community - FutureNHS Collaboration Platform
CNIO Team: United Clinical Leadership
The CNIO team were excited to be a part of Rewired 2023 and the national team featured on various sections of the two days.
Helen Balsdon, gave her first keynote as Interim CNIO to open up the Digital Nursing and Midwifery Summit.
Helen Crowther, Clinical and Primary Care Lead continued her mission to champion the voice of Queen’s Nurses chairing a panel discussing the challenges and opportunities of digitally transforming community nursing.
And Jules Gudgeon, National CMiDiO, talked about the essential role midwives play to change maternity care.
Tweetchat: The Role of Students in Digital Transformation
What role do students play in digital transformation?
Do they have a role in promoting digital literacy?
How do we support the development of students to drive digital transformation?
These were some of the questions explored by the North West DSDMC in their first ever tweet chat.
You can read the discussion by searching #NWDSDMC
Leeds Teaching Hospitals Recognised for WGLL Engagement
The HSJ Digital Awards shortlist has now been announced and the CNIO team wish to congratulate everyone recognised for their efforts harnessing the power of digital and data where they work!
It was fantastic to see Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust recognised for their work utilising What Good Looks Like (WGLL) to enable digital transformation at scale.
You can read more from the trusts Chief Clinical Information Officer Sarah Hanbridge, in this interview where she discusses the value of WGLL has had for benchmarking:
Education and Training
Below contains some training and education opportunities that have come up recently.
NIHR Application Development Award (ADA) now available
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has just launched commissions for ten ADA’s to carry out development work prior to research applications.
This opportunity allows nurses, midwives and other healthcare professionals the chance to develop as highly skilled researchers and research leaders to support future funding for future NIHR research programmes.
Find out more about the requirements: 24/20 NIHR Application Development Award for Health and Care Professionals | NIHR
Cohort 7 - Digital Leadership Programme
Applications for Cohort 7 of the Digital Health Leadership Programme is now open.
The programme is a centrally funded 12-month fully accredited Postgraduate Diploma (PGDip) in Digital Health Leadership and is delivered through 8 modules via a mixed delivery model including self-learning with group virtual and group face-to-face sessions.
If you're interested in this opportunity you can attend an applicants support webinar and find out more/apply below:
Digital Health Leadership Programme | Digital Transformation (hee.nhs.uk)
What else is going on?
This section outlines various knowledge, news and everything else going on we think the digital nursing and midwifery community will like.
Share Your Views: How Do You Manage ESR Alerts?
Our Digital Nursing FutureNHS Community Forum discussed the question "How do you manage ESR Alerts?"
We've had so many great responses on the forum and across social media that we're now looking to put together a crowd sourced article based on your insights, and it's not too late to contribute!
If you want to share your thoughts on alerts, and dealing with the issue of alert fatigue, then our forum discussion is still open to your views: Managing alerts in an EPR - Digital Nursing Community - FutureNHS Collaboration Platform
Blueprint of the Month: Electronic Observations and EWS Sepsis Dashboard
The Blueprinting team’s Blueprint of the month focuses on how North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust have implemented electronic observations across their Inpatient areas. This has led to a reduction of time taken by staff to complete observations, improved patient care and experience, and a decrease in costs.
Join the Blueprinting FutureNHS to read: Electronic Observations and EWS Sepsis Dashboard - Blueprinting - FutureNHS Collaboration Platform
Nursing Times: Addressing the challenge of nursing documentation
In this piece for the Nursing Times, Interim CNIO Helen Balsdon shares her views on changing how we document information about patients care, and the importance role of chief nurses to enable this.
Read here: ‘Addressing the challenge of nursing documentation’ | Nursing Times
Find Out More About the Frontline Digitisation Support Offer
The Frontline Digitisation Support Offer (FDSO) provides you with easy access to events run by leading subject matter experts, blueprints and documentation for valuable and real learnings, networks to connect and collaborate with your peers , and best practice guidance to enable the success of your EPR transformation programme.
- Click here to access the Online Support Hub on FutureNHS
- Sign up to online Events and Masterclasses
- Subscribe to the FDSO Bulletin
HSJ Roundtable Discussion: Digital Infrastructure
The HSJ held a roundtable event talking about supporting NHS transformation through digital infrastructure.
The panel featured a range of experts including CNIO community leaders Corrina Hulkes and Sarah Newcombe, exploring various topics on the challenges around digital infrastructure.
Read the findings and watch the videos: Supporting NHS transformation through digital infrastructure | Health Service Journal Guides (hsj.co.uk)
What Nurse-Led Research into Digital has Been Conducted in England?
Last year our Florence Nightingale Fellow Louise Cave, did some fantastic work looking at the evidence base of existing nurse-led research in England.
You can now read more about the findings here: Informing nursing policy: An exploration of digital health research by nurses in England - ScienceDirect
Two Years of the CNIO Bulletin
The first CNIO bulletin (previously Digital Nursing bulletin) was published in March 2022, with a simple goal to share useful information, celebrate successes, and keep you informed of the latest from the national team.
Our first bulletin went to around 14 people and today we now have 1500+ subscribers!
The CNIO Team at NHS England want to thank everyone for your support, we designed this bulletin to support nurses, midwives and our allies to keep updated on the work of the national team and share various information we think the community would like.
We're always looking for feedback to improve our content – if you have any feedback, or have anything you think we should be talking about, please contact england.cnio@nhs.net and we’ll get back to you.
And... if you think someone else will find value from the CNIO bulletin then you can help us grow by forwarding onto your colleagues and sending them a link to join our Digital Nursing FutureNHS Community to receive future bulletins.
Reading the link version of the bulletin? Don’t want to miss out? Join our Digital Nursing FutureNHS community to receive a copy in your email every month.
