HPFT Professional Nurse Advocate graduation: the class of February 2022…!

09 Feb 22

On 3 February 2022, we proudly hosted our very first Professional Nurse Advocate graduation ceremony where we celebrated seven of our colleagues’ fantastic achievement of receiving their PNA qualification.

The Professional Nurses Advocate (PNA) programme was launched in March 2021 by the Chief Nursing Officer for NHS England, as an initiative to support Nursing, Midwifery and care staff to deliver the NHS Long Term Plan. The PNA programme is a masters level accredited professional leadership and development programme for registered nurses, training them to deliver restorative supervision, develop cultures of learning and development, and to monitor and improve care in clinical practice with colleagues right across the country.

The PNA programme equips nurses to lead, advocate, support, and deliver improvements to service user care, and support the development, health and wellbeing of their colleagues. The role and presence of PNAs has been proven to be extremely beneficial, especially during COVID, because for nurses to provide the best care for patients, they must first look after themselves, and by providing this support helps nurses feel valued and able to share the burdens of their work.

At our graduation ceremony, we were thrilled to be joined by Emma Wadey, Deputy Director Mental Health Nursing NHS England & NHS Improvement, and Karen Cameron, Regional Professional Nurse Advocate Advisor NHSE & Improvement who co-presented with Bina Jumnoodoo, HPFT’s Deputy Director of Nursing and Quality, and Anita Wilson, HPFT’s Consultant Nurse Safeguarding Children / Lead for the PNA Programme.

Sharing her thoughts after the ceremony, Emma Wadey said:

“I am very impressed by the hard work and commitment from all the PNAs in taking on this additional role during such a testing and demanding time. The organisational support to implement Professional Nurse Advocates within HPFT is an exemplar to others - thank you so much for supporting the professional clinical leadership for nurses.”

Building on the success of our first cohort of PNA graduates, we have another group of post graduate students ready to begin the PNA course in March 2022, with more courses being planned and made available for HPFT nursing applicants later on in the year.

Speaking about the success of HPFT’s Professional Nurse Advocate programme, Anita Wilson, Lead Nurse said:

“I'm really excited to be leading the implementation of the PNA role into HPFT. We have commenced a Continuous Quality Improvement project and will be piloting the project in a few inpatient units over the next two months with the future aim that all nurses in HPFT will have access to restorative clinical supervision.”

For more information about PNA programme and how it’s being rolled out across England by NHSE, please visit here.

We can’t wait to see how the PNA programme develops and supports our nurses, and how that will translate into even better care for our service users, but in the meantime, a huge congratulations to our very own PNA graduation class of February 2022…!

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HPFT Professional Nurse Advocate graduation: the class of February 2022…!