Impact of Nurses and Midwives on Public Health: Recommendations
In a bid to improve overall health outcomes, a holistic approach called the All Our Health framework has been introduced for health promotion at patient, family, and community levels. This framework, which emphasizes collaboration across health professionals, patients, families, and communities, focuses on six main areas of action.
- Preventing disease and supporting recovery: Using evidence-based approaches, the goal is to prevent illness and aid recovery. This might involve educating patients about the benefits of regular check-ups, vaccinations, and early detection of diseases.
- Encouraging healthy behaviors: Promoting healthier lifestyle choices is another key area. This could mean helping smokers quit, advising on improved diet, or encouraging regular exercise.
- Identifying and managing risk: Early recognition of risks through screening and assessment is crucial. This can help reduce harm and lead to timely interventions.
- Promoting population health and reducing health inequalities: Actions are targeted at addressing wider social determinants to achieve health equity. This might involve working with communities to address issues such as poverty, education, and housing.
- Empowering individuals and communities: Enabling people to take control of their own health and wellbeing is a fundamental aspect of the framework. This could involve educating patients about their conditions, providing them with the tools to manage their health, and involving communities in decision-making processes.
- Creating healthy environments: Ensuring physical, social, and organizational environments support health is another important area. This could mean advocating for policies that promote healthy living, such as clean air and green spaces, or ensuring healthcare settings are designed to promote wellbeing.
The All Our Health framework builds on WHO principles of health promotion, such as health literacy, good governance, and healthy settings, with community participation and empowerment at its core. This framework is not only used in the UK but also internationally, providing a call to action for all healthcare professionals to use their skills and relationships to maximize their impact on avoidable illness, health protection, and promotion of wellbeing and resilience.
Every contact between a health-promoting practitioner and a member of the public can have an impact, from a healthy start to the end of life. Nurses, health visitors, midwives, and general practitioners can become health-promoting practitioners, using the professional guidance documents under the Framework for Personalised Care and Population to have a greater and wider impact on health promotion at the patient, family, and community levels.
As the society faces significant challenges in improving the health and wellbeing of the population, the All Our Health framework offers a comprehensive approach to address these challenges and improve overall health outcomes.
- Using the All Our Health framework, healthcare professionals can advise patients about the benefits of adopting healthier lifestyle choices, such as regular exercise and a balanced diet, which falls under the category of encouraging healthy behaviors.
- As the All Our Health framework also addresses promoting population health and reducing health inequalities, it encourages nurses, health visitors, midwives, and general practitioners to work with communities to address issues like poverty and lack of education, which can impact an individual's health outcomes.