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Professional Nurse Advocates (PNAs) in General Practice

Written by Megan Leahy and Gemma Bird, 11/04/2023

Benefits of the PNA role

The Professional Nurse Advocate (PNA) role aims to support Nurses both professionally and personally. The role helps develop and enhance the quality-of-care patients received, by supporting staff retention via ‘career conversations’ promoting and sign posting to opportunities to enhance professional development, support for internal appraisal preparation and revalidation via the NMC.

PNAs also offer restorative clinical supervision sessions which support with staff wellbeing and retention by giving them a safe space to reflect on practice and personal and professional behaviours, while building resilience to minimise staff burnout. This is achieved following the normative, formative, restorative supervision and providing a personal action plan for quality improvement, as supported by NHS England.

Continuous personal monitoring and evaluation, as well as clinical supervision and education and development through quality improvement are the core aspects of the PNA role and are fundamental within nursing as per the NMC code (NMC, 2018). The PNA has been effective in providing a framework for facilitating reflective discussions which has resulted in some real positive changes within working environments. Clinical supervisions can provide support, increase confidence, and develop clinical knowledge whilst maintaining good mental health which has been shown to decrease stress levels by 62% in turn leading to fewer staff illnesses and ensure staff retention. Nurses are essential within healthcare and enabling nurses the opportunity to reflect and grow within clinical time is crucial for developmental reasons and improved well-being, in turn leading to higher job satisfaction, staff retention and improved services for your own workplace.

We can offer your staff free access to the above services with support from our Professional Nurse Advocate Lead for Primary Care.

If you would like further information or to book in one-to-one or group sessions, please contact us at alliance.hub1@nhs.net.

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