Tara Newitt

After finishing the secondment as Charge Nurse Manager in CEC, I really wanted to have the opportunity to be part of the changes that CEC were in the early stages of prior to returning tto the CNS in Children High Care and with my previous clinical nurse specialist role in CHC having such a strong clinical focus in child health assessment of the unwell child, I felt I would be a valuable asset to the CEC team as a senior staff nurse.

Having the opportunity to work as a staff nurse has given me the opportunity to see the unique complexities that come with delivering care to children and Whanau in the children's emergency setting but also an opportunity to broaden my nursing skills and knowledge in areas I hadn't been exposed to like acute orthopedic, trauma and procedure based care.

I was in a very fortunately position to be offered a role swap and work as Charge Nurse Manager based in Children’s Emergency Care. I had the opportunity to lead and support a team through a challenging winter which was fast paced and dynamic. Complexities over this period meant that I would identify staffing gaps early and seek to find cover whether that be communicating with our wonderful casual pool staff or ED nursing colleagues. I lead the team through several changes using a collaborative approach which included moving the clinical resource nurse role to a front of house role, changes to zone nursing and redesigning the whanua room to an assessment space and freeing up the whanua meeting room to be used as in intended for whanau meetings. I also took the time to ensure nursing staff took time to celebrate the good things that they did by creating a staff shout out board where all members of the team could acknowledge actions from their colleagues that they appreciated and then shared it with the team.

My own professional tool box now has a broader understanding of recruitment, rostering and budgeting and learning what other members of the team can bring to support the wider service like supporting staff to step into quality projects like cortex development, trend care. and the ACNM role.

This Clinical Nurse Specialist role provides nursing support, leadership and demonstrates expert child health knowledge and skills. This role was multi faced in that there was a large education component for all nursing orientating to paediatric high dependency nursing but also an element of complex care coordination for long term children who were admitted to CHC.

In this role I provide after hour senior support to nursing and medical staff, facilitating patient flow for children admitted across the hospital. Since taking on this position I have gained strong leadership qualities, improved communication skills and learned effective problem-solving skills to facilitate the smooth transfer of patients across the Christchurch Campus. The aspect of the CNC position I enjoyed the most is developing relationships with outer child health areas like intensive Care and Emergency department, which traditionally admitted children with minimal Paediatric nursing support.

Assessment and nursing management of children in the acute medical / surgical setting both on the general ward and the high dependency unit

Specialized in neurosurgery and neurology practices.