HKU_Newsletter_Issue 40_Preview

Clinical Excellence Dr. CHEUNG Wai Lun Director (Cluster Services), Hospital Authority Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Nurses of the Future Year 2018 is the 37 th year that I have been working in the Hong Kong public healthcare system. I shall retire starting 1 st of April this year. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you some thoughts brought about by my coming retirement. About five years ago, a retirement wave began to emerge in Hong Kong. This is because those baby boomers born around 1950s to 1960s were approaching the age of 60. This is happening across different working fields and hits on professionals of various backgrounds. The medical community is no exception. Many outstanding experienced doctors, nurses and administrators retired in the past few years and will be retiring in the coming five years as well. Many organisations have been succession planning for years, nurturing the second and third generation successors at various levels within the organisations. The Hospital Authority (HA) is one of those organisations, placing succession planning as one of its corporate priorities. Under normal circumstances, replacing retirees regularly with a new tier of well-prepared staff would represent the opportunity for healthy organisational growth and should not be of concern even if the number could be of slightly greater magnitude each time. After all, generation replacement or substitution is a normal and certain phenomenon. However, there is a very different story for nurses in Hong Kong now and over the coming five years. Over the past ten years, the government increased the intake of nursing students at the university level. Many other tertiary education institutes also offer degree and diploma nursing programmes. This was in response to the severe shortage of the nursing workforce which occurred with a cut back of nursing student intake 15 years ago at the same time as increasing healthcare demand. The average number of nursing graduates in each of the past five years has been about 2,000. This rate of production will continue into the near future. The HA is pleased to see the increase of nursing graduates as the nursing workforce is still in shortage and Hong Kong is facing an ageing population with increasing healthcare service demand each year. In the past few years, the nursing attrition per year including retirement was around 1,000. With 2,000 nurses newly joining the public healthcare services, there has been around 1,000 net increase in the total nursing workforce per year. However, this repeated dilution of experienced nurses both in the past and continuing to the near future has brought an additional challenge to HA beyond the regular retirement phenomenon. At present, the HA has a nursing workforce of about 25,000 and half of these have five years of experience or less. In another five years’ time, the proportion of nurses with 10 or less years of experience will exceed 75%. No crystal ball is required to foresee the future as this can be easily confirmed by simple arithmetic. When talking with nursing colleagues, I found that most of the senior nurses had the following worries: “As nurses are getting younger and younger, are they capable of managing the increasing complexity of nursing? Will there be a negative impact on existing nursing standards? Do the young nurses have the right psychology to match the increasing expectations?” Since the inevitability of younger nurses becoming the dominant workforce, HA has been increasing training opportunities for nurses. In addition to on-the-job training, HA organises additional training courses on specialised nursing services. In recent years, HA has also provided additional opportunities for middle-level and senior nurses to visit foreign healthcare institutions and systems bringing back new concepts and advances. Furthermore, HA hires senior experienced nurses to serve as preceptors for the newly joined nurses to support their professional growth. HA will continue to strengthen existing training so that nurses can mature as soon as possible. However, the most crucial action is not what we want to do for them, but, rather, to enable them to understand that they are the future nursing profession and they will set the future nursing standards. The organisation and their nursing seniors are very willing to provide themwith the understanding of the critical importance of their roles. But, they will need to organise themselves and be willing to actively participate in advancing the nursing profession. We must accept the phenomenon of new substituting old. Our focus should be on how they can make their way forward rather than following our footsteps. I never worry about the future standards of nursing because the courage, determination and ability for personal growth of the young generation are beyond doubt. One of our key roles is to enable them to understand that they are the nursing community in the future. They will have the responsibility to become and be the leaders of the nursing profession. Let them participate. Value and respect their views. What we need to do is inspire, guide, support and provide opportunities. I am confident that the nurses of the future are always greater nurses. 3 Issue 40 Mar 2018