References
Nursing and Midwifery Council's post-registration standards review: implications for district nursing
The COVID-19 pandemic is a challenging and complex time for individuals, families and communities, both personally and professionally. District nursing (DN) services have continued to provide complex person-centred care for people at home. However, their caseloads have expanded rapidly and care delivery has become more complex due to the requirements for enhanced personal protective equipment and other factors to ensure patient safety due to COVID-19, at a time when other services have been reduced (Green, 2020). The leadership role of the district nurse is pivotal to DN teams being able to manage and deliver person-centred care in this increasingly complex landscape and across populations. Completion of the district nurse specialist practitioner qualification (DN SPQ) increases the confidence of district nurses as individuals, managers and clinicians while enhancing their understanding of patient expectations, team management and leadership (Hill, 2020). At the same time, the Queen's Nursing Institute's (QNI) DN education report for 2018–19 identified a small increase of 4% in the number of newly qualified district nurses, with many respondents concerned regarding the future funding of the DN SPQ programme (QNI, 2020).
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