RORY’s Values
Are you listening carefully?
W
hen I talk about living nursing leadership at all levels, I mean all nurses must fully embrace their leadership challenges and opportunities. Leading nursing is about bringing all your learnt experiences and putting them into action without de-energising yourself. Listening to your patients and their families is an essential element of nurse leadership. In 1881 Mrs Bedford Fenwick, at the age of 24, was appointed one of the youngest Matrons of her day for St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. How did she use her experiences in her role and did she listen carefully to patients and staff?. As you may know she was a militant supporter of the idea of a central organisation that sets standards and keeps a register of trained nurses. Florence Nightingale did not agree; she felt that character was as important as education and that neither this nor the ability to be a good nurse could be tested by an examination. In addition to this, she was concerned that a national standard and register would invariably lower the high standards achieved by many nurse training schools at that time. History has taught us that both these nurse leaders where undoubtedly strong and effective in many ways, but, as nurse leaders they did not always listen or work in collaboration or with other nursing leaders for the common purpose of putting patients and their families first. So how do we, as nurse leaders in 2013 and beyond, use our learnt experiences to work in collaboration and listen more with other leaders? How do we listen more effectively to our patients and their families, putting them first in every instance? I believe that the integrated agenda creates a real opportunity for nurses and nursing to lead and participate actively in the creation of a health and social care model that is patient and family focused, with the real emphasis on true multidisciplinary/ multiagency working. This will help ensure it is the norm to listen to all patients and their families and learn from all experiences they share with us. As a nurse leader I’m open to learning, in order for this to be effective I need to be prepared to hear views that I may not normally wish to hear—and be willing to learn from them. I have certainly heard views expressed I strongly disagree with; I take the view that as a leader I need to know what other people are thinking, so I am better able to work with, against or around them. It is also important that everybody feels able to say what they really think. When people express their views, whether articulate, bluntly or clumsily, I believe you should suspend instant judgement and enter into a constructive discussion and listen to any feedback that suggests particular ideas or language might cause offence. Being a leader you must make sure that your contributions are to the
point and be prepared to ask the difficult question. Speak as yourself and support colleagues when they have the courage to go out on a limb. I’ve regularly led or have been involved in leadership sessions involving case studies at various levels of nursing in which participants look at what their learning has been and in nearly all cases nurses identified not listening to patients’ and their families’ concerns as the main learning action they have taken. Therefore it is crucial that more emphasis is placed on how we discover the true experiences of our patients and their families by listening and learning from them.
© 2013 MA Healthcare Ltd
‘
British Journal of Nursing, 2013, Vol 22, No 13
Our experiences are among the most worthy memories we have and successful experiences can be valuable both financially and emotionally
’
Our experiences are among the most worthy memories we have and successful experiences can be valuable both financially and emotionally. The more we learn about how to create an environment where all experiences are listened to, the more success we will have in putting patients and their families first. I would now ask all nurses at all levels to use the principles I have briefly described above to make one change in their job today—listen to a patient and/or family about their experience, then commit yourself to your learnt experience and consider how you will apply that learning in your role from that point onwards. I wonder what Mrs Bedford Fenwick and Florence Nightingale would learn from the Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry (Francis, 2013), Institute for Healthcare Improvement, The UK Nursing and Midwifery Council, Clinical Commissioning Groups, Scottish Patient Safety Programme, Nursing in Higher Educational Institutes and the Integration agenda with Social Care to name but a few. A major learning point for us in 2013 and beyond is how we listen and learn from our patients’ and families’ experiences of using our services. It is only by listening that we can truly understand our BJN patients’ needs.
Rory Farrelly NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Director of Nursing Acute Services Division
Francis R (2013) Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry Executive Summary. Stationary Office, London. http:// tinyurl.com/bkgyem7 (accessed 3 July 2013)
The views expressed in this column are those of the author
799
British Journal of Nursing. Downloaded from magonlinelibrary.com by 193.061.135.112 on November 16, 2015. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. . All rights reserved.
Are you listening carefully?
W
hen I talk about living nursing leadership at all levels, I mean all nurses must fully embrace their leadership challenges and opportunities. Leading nursing is about bringing all your learnt experiences and putting them into action without de-energising yourself. Listening to your patients and their families is an essential element of nurse leadership. In 1881 Mrs Bedford Fenwick, at the age of 24, was appointed one of the youngest Matrons of her day for St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. How did she use her experiences in her role and did she listen carefully to patients and staff?. As you may know she was a militant supporter of the idea of a central organisation that sets standards and keeps a register of trained nurses. Florence Nightingale did not agree; she felt that character was as important as education and that neither this nor the ability to be a good nurse could be tested by an examination. In addition to this, she was concerned that a national standard and register would invariably lower the high standards achieved by many nurse training schools at that time. History has taught us that both these nurse leaders where undoubtedly strong and effective in many ways, but, as nurse leaders they did not always listen or work in collaboration or with other nursing leaders for the common purpose of putting patients and their families first. So how do we, as nurse leaders in 2013 and beyond, use our learnt experiences to work in collaboration and listen more with other leaders? How do we listen more effectively to our patients and their families, putting them first in every instance? I believe that the integrated agenda creates a real opportunity for nurses and nursing to lead and participate actively in the creation of a health and social care model that is patient and family focused, with the real emphasis on true multidisciplinary/ multiagency working. This will help ensure it is the norm to listen to all patients and their families and learn from all experiences they share with us. As a nurse leader I’m open to learning, in order for this to be effective I need to be prepared to hear views that I may not normally wish to hear—and be willing to learn from them. I have certainly heard views expressed I strongly disagree with; I take the view that as a leader I need to know what other people are thinking, so I am better able to work with, against or around them. It is also important that everybody feels able to say what they really think. When people express their views, whether articulate, bluntly or clumsily, I believe you should suspend instant judgement and enter into a constructive discussion and listen to any feedback that suggests particular ideas or language might cause offence. Being a leader you must make sure that your contributions are to the
point and be prepared to ask the difficult question. Speak as yourself and support colleagues when they have the courage to go out on a limb. I’ve regularly led or have been involved in leadership sessions involving case studies at various levels of nursing in which participants look at what their learning has been and in nearly all cases nurses identified not listening to patients’ and their families’ concerns as the main learning action they have taken. Therefore it is crucial that more emphasis is placed on how we discover the true experiences of our patients and their families by listening and learning from them.
© 2013 MA Healthcare Ltd
‘
British Journal of Nursing, 2013, Vol 22, No 13
Our experiences are among the most worthy memories we have and successful experiences can be valuable both financially and emotionally
’
Our experiences are among the most worthy memories we have and successful experiences can be valuable both financially and emotionally. The more we learn about how to create an environment where all experiences are listened to, the more success we will have in putting patients and their families first. I would now ask all nurses at all levels to use the principles I have briefly described above to make one change in their job today—listen to a patient and/or family about their experience, then commit yourself to your learnt experience and consider how you will apply that learning in your role from that point onwards. I wonder what Mrs Bedford Fenwick and Florence Nightingale would learn from the Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry (Francis, 2013), Institute for Healthcare Improvement, The UK Nursing and Midwifery Council, Clinical Commissioning Groups, Scottish Patient Safety Programme, Nursing in Higher Educational Institutes and the Integration agenda with Social Care to name but a few. A major learning point for us in 2013 and beyond is how we listen and learn from our patients’ and families’ experiences of using our services. It is only by listening that we can truly understand our BJN patients’ needs.
Rory Farrelly NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Director of Nursing Acute Services Division
Francis R (2013) Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry Executive Summary. Stationary Office, London. http:// tinyurl.com/bkgyem7 (accessed 3 July 2013)
The views expressed in this column are those of the author
799
British Journal of Nursing. Downloaded from magonlinelibrary.com by 193.061.135.112 on November 16, 2015. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. . All rights reserved.
