David Benton, CEO of the International Council of Nursing, came to Chapel Hill tis week to discuss nursing in the global health arena. Benton’s education and practice is U.K. based. He served as executive director of nursing at a London health authority, as senior civil servant in Northern and Yorkshire regions, as CEO of a Scotland nurse regulatory body, and nuyrse director of a University Trust Health System. Benton was presented with a 2001 Fellowship of the Florence Nightengale Foundation, and in 2003 was awarded a Fellowshio of the Royal College of Nursing for his work in health and nursing policy.
David Benton is a vocal advocate for identifying and promoting nurses who serve as role models for their peers and new nurses. Quality is based on having enough time in a health system for people to learn from each other, he states. Health care systems, he goes on to say, are streamlining to reduce overlap and costs and the opportunities to teach and learn are reduced. We need to expose our peers to excellence in practice. If you haven’t seen it, how can you emulate it?, he asks. The Registered Nurse needs the time to spend with the patient group and we must celebrate the success of each nurse to excels, putting them front and center so people can see what they are doing, sharing their story, promoting their example. Quality in health care depends upon the information flow and the physical layout, and it also requires champions. We must put the same emphasis on clinical governance as we do on financial governance, and always ask the question, How can we do better?
