Been to work today and it's like I've never been off. There's still no staff as everybody is dropping like flies with colds and diarrhoea. Had a nice shift to ease me back in but I have to say that following some post that I received from infection control, I am now on a mission. Somebody from another department has complained about how we on the maternity unit do things. They complained at a meeting that I wasn't present at, which is a darned good job because I would have shot them down in flames. Needless to say I will be present at the next meeting to fight our case. One of the procedures which we do on our unit is not being done according to hospital policy. I remember when we changed this procedure and how the infection control team were involved. I have dragged out the policy, dragged out all of the information detailing the changes and who was involved. I have also done a literature search and a search of the Cochrane database of systematic reviews and randomised controlled trials. It turns out that our hospital policy is out of date. It hasn't been reviewed for 4 years and there's a lot of new research out there..
What has irked me most is that the girl that put forward the complaint has never once been to speak to us and ask why we do what we do. She works just next door, she knows that our management are based on CDS, she has never questioned the individual midwives doing this procedure but brings it up in an open forum in front of all the other departments in the hospital. We are now being accused of bad practice when in fact we are complying with evidence based practice and doing it right.
I have enough research evidence to put forward a case for evidence based practice at the next meeting. I am hoping that the Infection control team will review this evidence and perhaps work on getting the policy changed throughout the hospital. Not only will it save some of the patients some discomfort but it should also save the hospital a bit of money.
I would like to think that people are brave enough to challenge what they perceive as bad practice, even if it is only to ask why they are doing what they do..........but it should be done there and then. If we haven't got the guts to challenge then the Harold Shipmans and Beverley Allitts of this world will continue to get away with murder...
What has irked me most is that the girl that put forward the complaint has never once been to speak to us and ask why we do what we do. She works just next door, she knows that our management are based on CDS, she has never questioned the individual midwives doing this procedure but brings it up in an open forum in front of all the other departments in the hospital. We are now being accused of bad practice when in fact we are complying with evidence based practice and doing it right.
I have enough research evidence to put forward a case for evidence based practice at the next meeting. I am hoping that the Infection control team will review this evidence and perhaps work on getting the policy changed throughout the hospital. Not only will it save some of the patients some discomfort but it should also save the hospital a bit of money.
I would like to think that people are brave enough to challenge what they perceive as bad practice, even if it is only to ask why they are doing what they do..........but it should be done there and then. If we haven't got the guts to challenge then the Harold Shipmans and Beverley Allitts of this world will continue to get away with murder...
