Advances in Contemporary Nursing: Workforce and Workplaces
Special Issue of Contemporary Nurse
Volume 36 Issue 1-2 August 2010
160 pages ISBN 978-1-921348-87-7
Guest Editors:
Debra Jackson
University of Western Sydney, NSW, Australia
and
Carol Haigh
Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
There can be no doubt that a strong, resilient, responsive and effective nursing workforce makes an enormous contribution to positive health outcomes for people. Conversely, a weakened or vulnerable nursing workforce can have negative or deleterious effects on people and their health, and on the ability of health care organisations to provide acceptable services.
Nursing has been beset by workforce challenges for much of the recent past, with concern focused on several key issues, such as recruitment and retention of nurses (McMillan & Conway, 2007), the ageing workforce (Fitzgerald, 2007; Jackson, 2008), and workplace issues such as violence (Luck, Jackson, & Usher, 2006; Speedy, 2006) and bullying (Hutchinson, Vickers, Wilkes & Jackson, 2010).
Furthermore, in many locations, the ability to provide efficacious nursing care is negatively affected by continued cuts to funding for hospital services. Like many other workers, nurses are being asked to do more with less, and there are additional challenges presented to the nursing workforce, including increasing global migration (Likupe, 2006; Raghuram, 2007), new superbugs and diseases (see for example: Chen, Chang, Lin & Chen, 2009; Shih et al., 2009), new technologies (Dowding et al., 2009; Garrett & Klein, 2008; Lee, 2008) and new roles (Chaney et al., 2007; Daly & Bryant, 2007).
If we want to see optimal standards of care in all situations and settings, we need to ensure that nurses are supported to effectively challenge poor practice, and are able to successfully advocate for individual patients, families, institutions and communities, as well as for their colleagues and the wider profession.
This special issue of Advances in Contemporary Nursing seeks to illuminate difficulties and challenges facing the nursing workforce and is devoted to a comprehensive and wide range of concerns associated with the contemporary nursing environment.
It is important that these issues be illuminated, because the first step to dealing with a problem situation effectively is to first recognise it, to make it visible, so that the nature and extent of the issue can be understood. Only then can effective explanation and resolution be sought.
Considering some of the challenges nursing faces, it can be easy to fall into a state of despondency and hopelessness about the future of nursing. However, it is vitally important to sustain optimism (Jackson, 2009), to continue to interrogate the issues that affect the nursing workforce, to illuminate that which remains hidden, to engage in dialogue, and to explore innovative ways of addressing the challenges that confront us.
It is hoped that this Special Issue might be a catalyst for reflection, dialogue, further research and inquiry, and most of all, in providing a forum for nurses to share their experiences, ideas, and scholarship, contributing to a discourse that will play a part in role enhancement, service development, and improved care of our patients, clients, and communities.
This Special Issue of Advances in Contemporary Nursing is devoted to workforce and workplace issues and as such it represents vital reading for nursing educators, researchers and practitioners.
Related special issue from Multiple Research Approaches
Editors:
Elizabeth Halcomb
School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney
and Sharon Andrew
Department of Acute Care, Faculty of Health and Social Care, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, UK
Contributions are invited to a special issue of the International Journal...
Related special issue from Rural Society
“Rural Health”
Editors:
Lisa Bourke University of Melbourne, VIC
Juli Coffin Combined Universities Centre for Rural Health
Jeffrey Fuller University of Sydney, NSW
Judy Taylor University of South Australia, SA
What typifies public perceptions of 'rural health' is poorer health status, especially a...Visit Website
eContent Home
