Health visitor and community nurse online
More health visiting and nursing care in the community could become available round the clock via increased use of online technology, perhaps requiring more nurses to work out of hours.
More health visiting and nursing care in the community could become available round the clock via increased use of online technology and reconfiguration of services. Were such innovations to happen, it is likely that both demand and supply would increase. Supply would be increased through expansion of services; this increase in supply could also lead to increased patient demand through these services being more easily available (though increases in demand would most likely be small, with fewer people likely to use services at less sociable hours).
Such proposals would mean more nurses would need to work, or be willing to work, out of hours, most likely through a rota system to ensure that each nurse only does a certain amount of night work in a specified time period. This would increase demand for staff, as more staff would be required to ensure a fully operational 24/7 service. However, if enquiries came into a central point for triage, this may not be necessarily the case, as resources could be used to only deal with a certain level of severity, such as in emergencies.
Sources or references
- Suggested by number of stakeholders in workshops during the CfWI research on nursing.
- From unpublished CfWI report (report available on request).
Some of the information in this section is provided by stakeholders and expert groups, and does not necessarily represent the views of the CfWI.
