Over the last two months the nursing and midwifery workforce has worked through extraordinarily challenging times managing the increased demand for care due to COVID surge. A significant number of nurses have been redeployed and been introduced to different departments to allow this to occur. You have continued to support each other and make improvements in the way we deliver care to our patients.
In the face of this challenging time, the team based model of care was implemented to:
- Assist in managing the impact of the influx of patients requiring our care,
- Support the need to continue to deliver best care despite the potential of increased staff personal leave
- Maintain manageable and equitable workloads despite a finite number of nurses and midwives with varying levels of experience.
Today, thanks to the willingness of many of our colleagues to be redeployed and significant recruitment we are in a much better position having prepared for all of these challenges.
Whilst we currently have significantly less COVID related demand, unfortunately this is predicted to change with a second wave of COVID related activity expected in December, peaking in January 2022. We therefore need to remain prepared and ready to meet the needs of the community – and maintenance of the team based model of care is an important element of this.
Unfortunately the past 2 years have disrupted undergraduates’ access to education, clinical placements and exposure to clinical experience and skills development opportunities. As new colleagues join us in the new year, the team based model of care is also designed to support new nurses and midwives with orientation, education, and appropriate supervision to ensure that they are safe whilst they develop skills, build competence and confidence at working together as one team to care for our patients.
Ultimately team based models are about optimising the strength of the nursing or midwifery team to work together, sharing the workload, supporting each other, using our knowledge and expertise to make informed decisions and providing our patients and women with the very best care possible. My sincere thanks for your ongoing commitment to safe, quality, and timely care of our community and each other.
For more information, please see the resources on the Crisis Model of Care page.