The article “Tavistock Neighbourhood Nursing Network: Collaboration Across Settings” by J. Benniston analyses the experience of developing a Neighbourhood Nursing Network (NNN) in the English town of Tavistock. The project was intended to improve communication between nurses throughout the area and contribute to the implementation of the trust’s goals. It now involves regular meetings and various support and education initiatives aimed at nursing professionals and receives mainly positive feedback from its participants.
The primary goal of the project was to improve communication between nurses working in different areas, help them to support each other to improve practice and work collaboratively, and facilitate multidisciplinary work. Another goal was to increase the voice of nurses in the primary care networks, enable them to articulate their value, and contribute to the aims of the NHS Long Term Plan (Benniston, 2020). In terms of healthcare delivery, the project aimed to ensure that high-quality care is provided to patients throughout the neighborhood, and effective health promotion and ill health prevention initiatives are introduced.
The network development process started with a survey that showed that nurses welcomed the opportunity to meet other health professionals working in the neighborhood to disseminate knowledge and skills. Invitations were sent to around 20 people, with 16 of them later registering and attending the meeting (Benniston, 2020). At the first event, there was representation from district nurses, practice nurses, nursing home nurses, ward nurses, and diabetes and dementia specialist nurses. The participants discussed their unique and shared skills to identify potential points of collaboration and determined the topics that most members were interested in. The second event was planned for two months later, and it was agreed that its focus would be frailty. The trust’s frailty project nurse presented statistics, and the group discussed its implications and the changes that should be made to the current approach to efficiently address the problem.
The article then discusses how the introduction of the NNN aligns with the trust’s goals. The first goal is putting people at the center of what the organization does. In keeping up with this mission, the NNN aims to ensure consistent person-centered services and adherence to high standards of practice. The second goal is valuing, supporting, and empowering each other, which the NNN supports by building relationships across nursing professions, embedding a culture of respect for each other, and valuing each other’s knowledge and skills. The third goal is having a strong social conscience and aiming to identify opportunities to deliver social, economic, and environmental benefits to the community. The NNN contributes to its implementation by identifying local projects that need funding and highlighting a range of community issues that need to be addressed. The fourth goal is transforming services to make them sustainable, which requires recognizing the changing needs of people and communities. The NNN has already identified the predicted significant increase in the neighborhood’s older population (Benniston, 2020). Overall, the NNN goals align with the trust’s goals, and the network has the potential to significantly facilitate their implementation.
Today, the NNN is an ongoing project, with meetings taking place every two months, learning opportunities being provided for its participants, and all initiatives reviewed and supported. The current outcomes of the project are the improved relationships across nursing services in the trust and the increased level of support across organizations. The feedback from members of the NNN has been very positive, with nurses reporting that they feel more valued and supported.
Reference
Benniston, J. (2020). Tavistock Neighbourhood Nursing Network: Collaboration Across Settings. British Journal of Community Nursing, 25(3), 122–125. Web.