All steam ahead

Over 2010 we have experienced a significant increase in the numbers of members from 1500 to over 2400 so far. Similarly we have had almost 1000 responses to our salary and conditions survey. Numbers of unique visitors to our website has also gone through the roof. Why?
I suspect that the focus on national registration requirements, an increased sense of professional identity and maybe better marketing on our part, has contributed to this level of engagement from nurses in our sector. At a meeting I attended the other day, other nursing organizations commented on a similar increase in membership and engagement. It really feels like we are gathering a level of professional momentum.
Launching the CPD portal this week has been a long work in progress. We hope as many of you as possible will use this new functionality and provide us with feedback on its usefulness and how we can improve it. It is a key part of APNA’s increasing focus on professional development within our specialty, supported by a fantastic CPD committee which is currently recruiting new members. The other aspects of our CPD strategy is a total revamp of our online learning college with a number of new courses coming online; careful endorsement of other providers’ education enabling nurses to know which courses or events are relevant and of high quality; development of a comprehensive event calendar and course information webpage.
The preliminary results from the salary and conditions survey indicate that pay and conditions continue to be problematic for nurses in general practice. And while this is the case we will continue to lose good nurses of this much-needed area of community care. Hence we are pleased to be able to work with the Victorian ANF to provide a workshop next week for practice nurses on industrial issues. As part of the workshop we will be working on describing the different roles and responsibilities of practice nurses at the different potential paypoints. We have gone into this collaboration to support the ANF in its industrial role while providing the benefit of our understanding of the issues of our members. The intent is to work positively with employers to develop agreements which are of advantage to both the nurse and the employer. While the APNA is not an industrial organization, we cannot get away from the impact of the highly variable and at times difficult employment conditions of our members as it directly affects their ability to work professionally and affects retention and morale. We will keep you up-to-date with where this is going.