competencies and standards
Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency
National Nursing and Midwifery Board - Codes and Standards
Australian Confederation of Paediatric & Child Health Nurses
National Competencies for the Specialist Paediatric & Child Health Nurse. Second Edition, 2006
Western Australian Community Health Nurses' Competency Standards, Second Edition, 2001
Introduction
In the first edition of community health nurses’ competency standards it was identified that “ Western Australian community health nurses are providers of primary health care which involves a high level of complexity and requires considerable depth of practice skills. The autonomous nature of community health nursing practice requires substantial skills in comprehensive assessment, communication, negotiation, decision making and accountability. It focuses on the promotion of the community’s health rather than disease and on partnership with the client in health care decision making. St John found that the community health nurse searches out and addresses unmet health needs within families, groups and, on occasion, communities and sees their individual and family clients as situated within the complex fabric of the community. Further she suggests that community health nurses require a sophisticated understanding of the community and that operationalising a notion of the community in practice is complex and fluid.”1 (1998, p1)
As a specialist area of nursing practice the nature of the role requires community health nurses to operate in a wide variety of practice settings, often involving generalist as well as specialist
practice functions. Competency standards are a valuable tool in guiding best practice and WA community health nurses have embraced the use of competency standards to assist in the identification of practice requirements and to support and maintain the professional status of their specialty area
Community health nurses in Western Australia in 1998 documented their competency standards for the beginning and advanced level of practice, which reflected the continuum of professional development. Many nursing specialties have developed competency standards to demonstrate their unique area of practice. All these specialty competencies build on the basic competencies of the registered nurses and at the advanced level interlink with the Australian Nursing Federation advanced level competencies for a registered nurse. In some instances the community health nurse will draw on other specialty standards, such as the Standards for Remote area Nursing Practice, as well as those contained in this document to reflect their practice
In this second edition the competency standards have been re examined to confirm they adequately reflect practice in the current health environment. These competency standards are seen as a living document owned by Community Health Nurses throughout the State. As such ongoing input is required by community health nurses to ensure relevancy and currency for the practice of community health nursing from beginning to advanced level
Competencies are now an accepted method of describing the complexity of nursing practice.
Competencies from other health professional groups within the nursing profession identify the different practice areas and modalities of practice. Competency based statements are now utilised in job descriptions, performance management, in re registration and in guiding individual practice and mentoring of future nurses and new practitioners.
This document provides competency statements through which these processes may be developed and contains the competency standards for the beginning level and advanced community health nurses developed by nurses in Western Australia and reviewed by community health nurses in 2001.
Readers are encouraged to read the first edition of the Competency Standards for the community health nurse to understand the initial project methodology, narrative analysis and case studies which were utilised in commencing the documentation of our practice.
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1 St John, W. 1996. From ambiguity to action: An insiders perspective on the role of the community health nurse in Australia. La Trobe University, Victoria..p340
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Purchase
The 2nd edition Competency Standards for the community health nurse are available to purchase for A$13.20.
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PO Box 719 Victoria Park 6979 (Australia)