The role and self‐perceived training needs of nurses employed in general practice: observations from a national census of practice nurses in England and Wales

Atkin, Karl; Hirst, Michael; Lunt, Neil; Parker, Gillian

doi:10.1046/j.1365-2648.1994.20010046.x

Cited by 51 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…27 This was also true after the 1990 contract, which was influential in the development and professionalisation of practice nursing, with role development particularly apparent in the incentivised areas of health promotion and chronic disease management. [8][9][10][11][12] For some of those interviewed, the contract had not changed the type of patients they were seeing substantially, but had increased the workload associated with these patients, including a greater emphasis on using the computer during the consultation and 'box-ticking'. This may then squeeze out the more holistic and patient-centred aspects of the consultation, such as providing patients with explanations about treatments.…”

Section: Comparison With Existing Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…2 With the possible exception of Liberating the Talents, 3 practice nurses are often missing from strategic policy documents [4][5][6][7] due to their position as contracted employees of GPs. As the workforce has increased, the workload of individual nurses has also increased, with more emphasis on health promotion and chronic disease management, [8][9][10][11] particularly when these areas were incentivised under the 1990 contract. 12 The new General Medical Services (GMS) contract, including the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), was a UK-wide contract implemented in April 2004.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Impact of the 2004 GMS contract on practice nurses:

Mcgregor¹,

Jabareen²,

O’Donnell³

et al. 2008

Br J Gen Pract

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Section: Comparison With Existing Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of the 2004 GMS contract on practice nurses:

Mcgregor¹,

Jabareen²,

O’Donnell³

et al. 2008

Br J Gen Pract

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…They may also run travel, teenage and well-person clinics. 2,[4][5][6] In these settings the ability to take a sexual history and offer appropriate advice is important. Practice nurses may be better placed to discuss sexual health with patients than GPs, given their established role in health promotion and longer consultation times.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual health and the practice nurse: a survey of reported practice and attitudes

Stokes

Mears²

2000

j fam plann reprod health care

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Key words practice nursing; sexual health IntroductionSexual health has been defined as 'the enjoyment of the sexual activity of one's choice without suffering physical or mental harm'. 1 Unfortunately sexual activity can have unintended outcomes such as pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and infertility. General practice is an important provider of sexual health services in the UK and both general practitioners (GPs) and practice nurses regularly deal with sexual health issues such as contraception, STIs and psycho-sexual concerns. 1 There has been recent interest in the expansion of services to include sexual health advice to teenagers 2 and screening for genital chlamydial infection. 3 Practice nurses have a key role in the provision of sexual health services in general practice. They may offer family planning advice, do cervical smears and be the first point of contact of women with genito-urinary symptoms. They may also run travel, teenage and well-person clinics. 2,[4][5][6] In these settings the ability to take a sexual history and offer appropriate advice is important. Practice nurses may be better placed to discuss sexual health with patients than GPs, given their established role in health promotion and longer consultation times. 7,8 It is, however, likely that barriers exist to dealing with sexual health issues in practice nurse consultations. Such barriers include lack of time, lack of knowledge, embarrassment and poor communication skills. 7 Little is known about how practice nurses view sexual health issues. A qualitative study of sexual health and family planning services in general practice commissioned by the Family Planning Association was carried out in 1992. 9 This involved face-to-face interviews with 20 practice nurses drawn from 60 general practices in England and Wales. The authors concluded that there was scope for practice nurses to become more involved in sexual health issues; <50% of practice nurses surveyed had any family planning qualifications. Practice nurses wanted more training in family planning, sexuality, abortion and psycho-sexual counselling. While such research is useful, there remains a need to quantify attitudes towards sexual health among practice nurses and to determine whether more positive attitudes are associated with training. It is also important to describe current clinical practice. We therefore undertook a study to describe reported practice, training received, attitudes towards sexual health issues, barriers to discussing sexual health with patients and perceived training needs of practice nurses in one English health district. Methods Questionnaire development and sampleA district-wide sample of practice nurses was used as the survey results were to be used to inform local provision of sexual health training courses. Key message pointsPractice nurses offer a wide range of services in which the ability to take a sexual history and offer appropriate advice is important. Nurses are more comfortable discussing sexual health issues with female pati...

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“…5 For many years general medical practitioners have been able to use nurses to innovate, without a law being written to allow it. The number of practice nurses more than trebled between 1985 and 1991, 6 with many performing tasks previously only undertaken by doctors. There is also evidence that this expansion in skill mix has brought gains in terms of quality of patient care.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%