News round-up including: New social media guidelines/ All new NPs to prescribe/ Care Plus grows
New social media guidelines
Even when nurses use social media like Facebook or Twitter with good intentions, patient confidential can be inadvertently breached, warns the Nursing Council. The Council recently released its eight-page guidelines on social media and electronic communication to expand on the points raised in the 2012 Code of Conduct.
The document looks at the benefits and pitfalls of using social media. It also reminds nurses that emails to patients, answerphone messages, and texts may be accessed by others, and that professional boundaries can be breached when health consumers are made ‘friends’ on personal social media websites. The guideline also reminded nurses that patients don’t have to be named to be identifiable and “even with the strictest privacy settings, information can forwarded and shared in potentially ever-expanding networks”.
The new guidelines can be downloaded from the Council website: www.nursingcouncil.org.nz The Council guidelines are in addition to the 19-page social media guide produced last year by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, nurse educator group NETS, and the NZNO National Student Unit.
All new NPs to prescribe
The Nursing Council has confirmed that all new nurse practitioners will need to be qualified prescribers once the Medicines Amendment Bill is eventually passed.
The Amendment Bill will bring in the long-awaited authorised prescribing status for NPs – the same status as currently held by midwives and medical practitioners. The bill assumes that all NPs are qualified prescribers but currently 21 of the more than 110 NPs registered are non-prescribers. After receiving strong backing during the consultation process, the Council said it had decided to go ahead with its proposal to amend the NP scope of practice once the bill is passed. The result will be that from June 2014 it will cease registering NPs without prescribing rights. Once the legislation changes, non-prescribing NPs will have a condition included in their scope indicating that they may not prescribe. Those NPs who wish to have this condition removed will need to hold the required pharmacology qualifications and carry out a 100-hour supervised prescribing practicum and then pass a competence assessment by a medical mentor and NP.
The much-anticipated Amendment Bill was first introduced to Parliament in February 2012 and after the health select committee reported back in August it was hoped to be passed by the end of 2012. But a spokesperson for the minister responsible for the bill, Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne, said in late February that no date had been set for the bill’s return to Parliament for its second reading.
Vacuuming does count
New Zealand’s first guidelines advising health practitioners on how to keep older Kiwis physically active have been released by the Ministry of Health.
Key recommendations for over-65-year-olds include spending more time being physically active and less time sitting. Daily activities like walking to the shops, vacuuming, and gardening all count. The aim is for people to have at least 30 minutes of activity five days a week that increases breathing and heart rate, from playing with the grandkids to cycling or golf. The guidelines can be found at: bit.ly/Xivq1
The Ministry has also recently released a background paper on food and nutrition guidelines for older people, which can be found at: bit.ly/VrR1X8
Clean hands champion sought
Entries are sought for the inaugural Clean Hands Champion of the Year award. The competition has been launched byHand Hygiene New Zealand to recognise healthcare workers practicing and role modelling good hand hygiene practice in hospitals around the country. For more information go to: bit.ly/VoxMwn
Care Plus grows
A decade on, Care Plus services are being now offered to about 190,000 people in the community with high health needs. Health Minister Tony Ryall said the number had nearly doubled in the past five years, with an extra 85,000 people now receiving extra support for their long-term conditions from GPs and nurses. Care Plus services first began to be offered to people with long-term conditions by GPs and nurses back in February 2003. Ryall said the Government was now spending $50 million on the Care Plus programme, which was more than double than in 2007.
Snippets from online
• Nursing Review News Feed
• Nursing Council rejects as discriminatory its own proposed tougher registration standards for overseas nurses: bit.ly/VjeWVh
• HWNZ chair Des Gorman threatens financial stick if public hospitals don’t ring-fence jobs for new graduate nurses: bit.ly/XQdQk8
• Ex-president Marion Guy is to step back into the NZNO presidency after winning a three-way race for the role, which included current president Nano Tunnicliff: bit.ly/X6CufW
• Forty per cent of new grads seeking public sector nursing jobs were unsuccessful by the start of 2013: bit.ly/T1dCtB
