LONDON NETWORK FOR NURSES AND MIDWIVES

HOMELESSNESS AND NURSING WORKING GROUP

The Homeless and Refugee and Asylum Seekers groups merged to form one group as from September 2003. The Homelessness and Nursing Working Group is represented by nurses who work in primary care, mental health, health visiting, acute settings and in the voluntary sector. The group is chaired by Caroline Alexander, the Director of Nursing for Tower Hamlets PCT.

The group agreed at its 2nd August 2007 meeting that the following areas of work would be its priorities

Commissioning

• Develop partnerships with voluntary sector providers – to explore opportunities and threats and shared service development aspirations
• Strong relationships with HEIs in terms of research, education, and evaluation opportunities
• Evaluate the impact of the discharge guidance & develop plan to fill gaps
• Explore other networks & joint work opportunities - to share issues & strengthen voice
  

• Map existing outcome measures
• Develop 3 measures that can be used consistently in commissioning
  

• Agreed supervision models that would work across London
• More staff encouraged to come into speciality
• Agreed competencies
• Develop political astuteness/awareness in this marginalised group of specialist nurses
• Education Commissioning – see if can commission cross London support to meet specific needs rather than local commissioning for this specialist group of staff, eg, commission a London wide learning set
  

Group members are currently working on the key priorities and they will be reviewed at the next meeting at the end of September to finalise the group’s action plan for the year and to launch the plans.

Past Activities

Achievements 2005-06