Message from Professor Greta Westwood (Chief Executive Officer Florence Nightingale Foundation) and Anne Mukuna (Acting Registrar Nursing Council of Kenya)

Please accept our very warm welcome to your Leadership Programme. We are delighted to be running this leadership programme together as the Florence Nightingale Foundation (FNF) and the Nursing Council of Kenya (NCK) in collaboration with our partners the Ministry of Health Kenya, The Kenyan Nurses and Midwives Association UK (KENMA-UK), and the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust. This document outlines all the key information you will need to make the most of this opportunity.

Background to the Programme

Nurses and midwives are a critical part of the health workforce. They form the largest single professional group in any health set up, and are responsible for more than 80% of the health indicators, where they make a huge contribution towards delivery of quality health care interventions across the lifespan. Further, nurses and midwives are central and a reference point in the multidisciplinary team. As such, they must demonstrate strong leadership capacity if the vision and the healthcare goals are to be achieved. The Nursing Council of Kenya, as a regulator of nursing and midwifery education and practice in Kenya has ingrained leadership content in the syllabi at each level of training, cognisant of the fact that every nurse and midwife is a leader throughout the health system, whether at the bedside or in the boardroom. The mid-level managers are strategically placed to shape healthcare interventions, and drive towards quality care for patients and clients, and at the same time shape and drive health policy implementation.  The nurse and midwife at this level must act as a full partner with the members of the multidisciplinary team, to include patients and families for patient-centred care.  Additionally, key drivers for migration include challenging work conditions, limited career growth and training opportunities. Nursing and midwifery managers are pivotal in shaping their team members’ intentions but often feel ill-prepared to address such fundamental challenges. The MoH and key national stakeholders have identified challenges which threaten the sustainability of the improvements envisaged in the National N&M Policy, related to: working conditions; availability of essential supplies and equipment, safe working environments, morale and productivity; involvement of nurses and midwives in decision making; implementation of scope of practice; budgetary allocation and management; and integration of nurses and midwives in health workforce planning. Strike action is a sign of discontent, and recent strikes by Kenyan nurses have highlighted concerns about safe staffing levels and working conditions as well as pay. The ICN emphasises that it is the root causes of these concerns that must be addressed (ICN, 2022). 

This leadership training is being delivered as part of the Global Health Workforce Programme (GHWP) which aims to strengthen the health workforce in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria. The GHWP is funded by the UK Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for the benefit of the UK and partner country health sectors.

Programme

The aim of the project is to design and deliver a unique leadership programme that equips mid-level nursing and midwifery managers in Kenya with skills to improve performance and retention and advocate for improving the nursing and midwifery workforce. There are 6 components to the training and you will be expected to participate in all of these:

• A five day face-to-face training programme in Nairobi (6th-10th May 2024)
• Monthly webinars which will commence in May 2024 and will be held at 3pm on the second Wednesday of every month. The first will be held during the face-to-face session.
• Attend virtual sessions between the face-to-face training and the celebration event. The dates and times for these will be communicated to you following the face-to-face programme
• Engaging with your mentor. Participants will be assigned a mentor and group virtual mentorship meetings will be held. Mentors will be from the Kenyan nursing and midwifery diaspora in the UK recruited through KENMA-UK to enhance bi-directional learning
• Undertake a quality improvement project in your area of work
• Attend the final Celebration event at the end of the programme

Prior to commencing the programme, you will have been asked to complete the Leadership Practices Inventory, the FNF Pre-impact Survey.

You will also be asked to complete various monitoring and evaluation activities as part of the requirements from the funders.

We hope you find your journey a truly transformational experience and develop the foundations and networks to realise your leadership potential.

Co-consulting

As part of the project, you have been introduced to Co-consulting, also known as Nightingale Frontline. This is a powerful source of peer support for leaders. You learnt about how to set up and run sessions as part of your leadership week. For the remainder of the programme, you and your group will meet 4-6 weekly for a 40-minute session. You are responsible for arranging and running these sessions, using the guidance available.

Guide to Co-consulting :

If you want to deepen your knowledge about Co-consulting, there are additional learning resources here.