Nursing and Midwifery Excellence

We want STSFT to be a great place to learn and develop a career. A place where nurses and midwives have access to life-long learning.

This pathway standard is about how we:

• continue to develop the skills of our nurses and midwives
• make sure staff have the right skills for the job we are asking them to do
• support nurses and midwives to take part in studying and training
• make sure every nurse and midwives has an appraisal each year
• talk to staff about their career goals and how we can support them.

This makes sure that our nurses and midwives have a voice in decisions. It helps them to share ideas and ways we can improve. We want to empower every nurse and midwife.

This pathway standard is about how we:

• develop a culture where all staff groups work as a team
• make sure nurses and midwives help decide the best clinical practice
• make sure we have ways for nurses and midwives to raise ethical concerns
• involve nurses and midwives when we choose what technology to use
• involve nurses and midwives when we hire new staff.

Excellent leadership at all levels is important. It helps us to provide high quality care. Those who manage, should lead by example. They should be visible and available to staff when they need them. We expect our leaders to meet regularly with frontline staff. It is important to ask for staff views. This can be for things like how we can improve patient care and how we can improve staff well-being.

This pathway standard is about how we:

• make sure nurses and midwife have a say in how we do things
• make sure our Chief Nurse is accessible to nurses and midwives
• make sure our nurse and midwife managers are visible to staff
• involve nurse and midwife managers when we need to decide how to save money
• make sure our leaders support our nurses and midwives at times of change.

The safety of staff and patients comes first in all that we do. We want to create a safe environment. This means making sure we are inclusive, friendly and welcoming. We want our patients and staff to feel safe and supported. We support our nurses and midwives to use safety practices that reduce the risk of any harm to patients and staff.

This pathway standard is about how we:

• involve nurses and midwives to talk about when things go wrong
• develop a culture where staff feel safe at work and can call out bad behaviour
• protect our nurses and midwives from abuse of any kind
• involve nurses and midwives on daily staffing decisions to ensure safe care
• involve nurses and midwives when a patient moves from one level of care to another.

We can always be better, and we should always be looking for ways to improve outcomes for our patients.

This pathway standard is about how we:

• develop a culture where we respond to needs of each person and family.
• educate our staff about how to talk to each other in a respectful way.
• give our nurses and midwives the chance to learn and take part in evidence-based practice.
• use teamwork across staff groups to improve the quality of what we do.
• communicate well to let staff know how the Trust is doing against key quality measures.

If patients are the heart of everything we do, then our staff are the soul. We know that investing in staff health and wellbeing has a positive impact on patient care. Everyone has a part to play in our success and we know how much a simple thank you means. We treat people with respect and value the work and views of others.

This pathway standard is about how we:

• ask our nurses and midwives how we can improve their wellbeing.
• support our nurses and midwives with flexible work patterns to help wellbeing.
• make sure our nursing leaders recognise when staff do well.
• support our nurses and midwives when something goes wrong at work.
• support our nurses and midwives when they are physically tired from doing their job.