“All nurses must act as change agents and provide leadership through quality improvement and service development to enhance people’s wellbeing and experiences in healthcare”

Drawing on a practice situation, utilise module content to evaluation how leadership influences care quality.

Essay Plan

1. Introduction
Provide an introduction which sets out the aim of the essay, points that will be addressed and reasons for this.

2. Practice Situation – (Please add exactly as typed below and refer to this throughout the essay)
3.
Whilst on a recent care of the elderly placement on more than one occasion a specific group of clinical support staff were spending substantial amounts of their day sitting at the nursing station on mobile phones every time they were on duty. This resulted in patient buzzers being left unanswered, impacting on patient care and increasing registered nurses workload which in turn can start to impact on patient care and staff morale and team working I was also made aware that the problem had been brought to the charge nurses attention previously to which she was dismissive and stated that she “hadn’t noticed it” and nursing staff should “sort it out” between them. Nursing staff had tried on several occasions to address the matter themselves to no avail, as the clinical support staff had displayed this behaviour when the charge nurse had been on duty and she had not addressed it therefore they deemed it as acceptable. It became necessary for registered nursing staff to bring the matter to the attention of the charge nurse again and at this stage to which she was very displeased and more responsive. Several staff meetings were held to encompass all staff members where the charge nurse highlighted NHS Lothian mobile device policies as well as addressing the importance of patient care and safety and staff responsibilities. She made it very clear to all members of staff that this was unacceptable and should anyone continue to ignore policies and procedures, they would be disciplined. The outcome of these meetings were positive as the majority of staff felt supported and respected her.

4. Leadership
Outline what leadership is, why it is necessary and the essential skills required to be an effective leader, also exploring the differences between clinical leadership and nursing leadership. Link to above practice situation where possible.
5. Trait Theory
Provide a description and evaluation of trait theory.

6. Leadership Theories
Description and evaluation of leadership theories to include autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, transformational, transactional. This section MUST be linked to the practice situation above and mainly focus on laissez-faire, highlighting that the charge nurses initial way of dealing with the problem often is ineffective and does not drive change and then further discussion on how the charge nurses effective autocratic leadership dealt with the issue. Critique and evaluation of literature to support the above is essential. (It should be noted that with regards to the practice situation that whilst a laissez-faire approach may have been used in the charge nurses approach when telling nursing staff to sort the problem themselves” it may also be recognised that she may have previously demonstrated a very autocratic style of leadership as the clinical support staff seen her as the only person with authority on the ward hence, ignoring the nursing staff when asked to stop using their phones).

7. Patient Safety
Evaluation of patient safety and the importance of various pieces of legislation and maintaining patient safety. This section must include a link to the practice situation with supporting literature and evaluation.

THIS SECTION MUST INCLUDE REFERENCE TO THE FOLLOWING: National Health Service Quality Improvement Scotland, The Healthcare Quality Strategy for NHS Scotland and Nursing and Midwifery Council Code of Conduct.

8. Clinical Governance in relation to education/training and support of staff.
This section should highlight the importance of leadership in providing effective education, training and support to staff and should link to the scenario. This section should also include a strong link towards clinical governance and how this may assist with the above.

9. Conclusion
Conclude with a run down of how the essay question has been answered and evaluate how the practice situation was handled and what was done well or could have