A key area up for discussion at the National Nursing Summit is education.
The SA Nursing Council, the governing body for nursing in South Africa, is currently focusing its attention on two key areas to make nursing more workable and effective — re-organising nursing qualifications and training and setting new standards of practice, including bringing into effect monitoring procedures to ensure compliance.
Tendani Mabuda, the Council’s Registrar and CEO, explains: “Seventeen years of democracy in South Africa have been characterised by major transformation of the healthcare system. The Government has introduced a number of legislative and policy frameworks to ensure equal access to healthcare services in the country.
“Some of these impact directly on nursing education and practice, such as the Nursing Act, 2005, the Higher Education Act ,1997, the National Qualifications Framework , 2008, the South African Qualifications Authority,1995 and the National Health Act, 2003, as well as policies such as the Reconstruction and Development Programme, the District Health System and the Nursing Strategy of South Africa (2008), to mention just a few.
“However, during this period curricula have not been reviewed to be commensurate with these changes, nor with the changing disease burden, such as HIV/Aids, TB and drug- and alcohol abuse. Furthermore, not enough has been done so far to prepare nurse practitioners to meet the challenges of the Millennium Development Goals and ever-changing medical technologies, nor to align nursing with the country’s National Qualifications Framework.”
The Council is already far advanced in re-organising nursing qualifications into a more workable system. It has taken steps to remove some of the anomalies that tend to cause confusion — such as, for instance, the existing system of having two courses for professional nurses that are identical in content and duration, but one is designated a diploma course that is studied at nursing colleges, while the other is designated a degree and is studied at universities. These two courses are to be consolidated into one, a Bachelor of Nursing degree.
In addition, the Council has revamped nursing qualifications in line with the legislative changes and altered health landscape alluded to by Mabuda. Consequently, all the new nursing qualifications devised by the Council fit in with the National Qualification Framework (NQF), which provides for Levels 1 to 10.
The Bachelor of Nursing degree, referred to above, accords with the NQF’s Level 8, for instance. The Honours degree and post-graduate diplomas are also accorded Level 8 status, with the Masters and Doctorate qualifications at Levels 9 and 10 respectively.
The one-year Advanced Diploma in Midwifery slots in below the degree course at Level 7, followed at Level 6 by a three-year Diploma in Nursing for training of staff nurses, which is an enhanced and extended version of the existing two-year course for staff nurses.
Another anomaly in the existing nursing qualifications system will be eliminated with the elevation of the one-year course for auxiliary nurses to Level 5 (currently at Level 3), thus according them due recognition for their skills over healthcare workers, whose training course has Level 4 status.
The new national qualifications, due to come into effect in mid-2012, have been submitted to the SA Qualifications Authority (SAQA) for assessment and registration. They have also been posted on the SAQA website for public comment.
The SA Nursing Council has also prepared new standards of nursing practice, incorporating procedures for accreditation and for regular monitoring of nurses in their places of work to ensure that the standards are complied with. “The scope of practice will change to be in line with the new national qualifications, spelling out the scope of responsibility of each category of nurse, thereby eliminating grey areas that exist at present,” Mabuda says.
In addition, the Council plans to introduce a programme for continuous professional development. “We are developing a concept framework for this. We have to benchmark it with other professional bodies and devise a model that is suitable to nursing. It is a longer-term project than the others, which are our primary goals and therefore need to be put in place as quickly as possible,” Mabuda concludes