Recruiting a new Chief Nurse is back under way after a decision not to shunt the position sideways and down a notch – at least not yet.
Replacing the Chief Nurse was put on hold in March while the Ministry of Health reviewed its structure, including an unpopular proposal to shift the Chief Nurse role into the National Health Board and drop its status a tier in the ministry hierarchy.
Nursing leaders cried foul and late last month the ministry announced it had decided transferring the four member nursing team to the NHB’s workforce unit (Health Workforce New Zealand) would “not be a good fit” – at present.
Geoff Annals, NZNO chief executive said he was pleased the director-general in his report appeared to acknowledge the nursing team’s role was wider than just workforce. But was “alarmed” the decision was apparently just a deferral to give the NHB’s workforce group time to focus on its core business of medical practitioners.
“The current [Government-directed] focus is on medical practitioners, and will [be] for two years, so it is not the right time to incorporate nursing into the workforce group,” says the Director-General of Health’s report. Annal’s concerns at this comment were echoed by College of Nurses’ executive director Jenny Carryer who said it was “crazy” to consider one major workforce group in isolation from the capacities and potential of others.
Both the college and NZNO had also called for the Chief Nurse position to report directly to the director-general, like the newly created Chief Medical Officer (CMO) position, but this was denied. Annals said the rationale for the CMO’s direct-reporting role was the importance of “strong internal clinical leadership to inform strategic direction” but the nursing voice was relegated to the clinical leadership group lead by the CMO.
A statement from the Ministry of Health said the chief nurse would report to a deputy director-general and would also work with the HWNZ director to “align the nursing workforce development activity within the HWNZ board’s work programme”.
The Chief Nurse decision is part of the director-general’s comprehensive restructuring review that ‘divvied-up’ up current roles and staff between the core Ministry of Health and the ministry’s National Health Board business unit, resulting in an overall cutting of 35 positions. The result is a new structure of 1390 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff from July 1, to be cut further to 1290 FTE by June 30 next year.
Meanwhile a ministry investigation into former Chief Nurse Mark Jones’ expenditure concluded there was no evidence of “fraud, deliberate misuse of funds or personal financial gain” by Jones but he had not demonstrated “careful stewardship of public money”.
