Reflective practice in community nursing

As we welcome in 2020, we know it is likely to be another extremely busy year for community nursing teams, and there are massive challenges ahead for everyone, not least the perennial shortage of nursing staff across healthcare sectors. Changes leading to uncertainty and complexity are part of the everyday landscape when working in the community setting.

What we can be certain of is that the NHS Long Term Plan (2019) will continue to bring in wholesale changes for all community nursing practitioners over the coming year. For instance, community staff are now working within integrated networks to deliver personalised care in out-of-hospital settings. In order to improve care outside hospital and fulfil the commitment to fully integrate the configuration of community-based health care, we will all need to adapt to new ways of working. These are uncertain times, and we may feel that we do not know how we fit into this new service configuration. We may be sorely tempted to do what we have always done and try to ignore the changes around us by focusing on our busy caseloads and hoping that the new changes will not affect us. However, this would be a mistake, as community nursing services are key providers of care for people in the home setting and are crucial to achieving the primary goal of improving care, particularly for older people. This new year, it is worth considering how each of us can build our own leadership traits, which may support us in embracing new partnerships and ways of working.