There are now many new nurses starting to work in our general practices which is fantastic news.

Don’t forget to tell us if you have a new nurse in the practice, especially if they have not worked in general practice before. There are a lot of resources available for a nurse new to general practice including:
1. Nursing in General Practice Recruitment and Orientation Resource– this has three sections and is available electronically from the CSGPN web site or in hard copy
a. The general practice team
b. For the employer
c. For the nurse
2. Position Statement Nursing in General Practice
3. Delegation and Supervision for Nurses and Midwives ANMC
4. General practice nursing by Walker, Patterson, Wong, Young (published by McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd 2010)
5. Competency Standards for nurses in General Practice.

Once informed about a new nurse at your practice we can offer support via practice visits from our different project officers. For example: Alex Dolezal can provide on-site training for most prescribing software; Vijay Ramanathan offers information and training for chronic disease management and Lisa Maude will supply many resources and information on immunisation.

We also like to ensure that we have all practice nurse current contact details in our database so we can then offer the opportunity to receive our electronic communications including subscription to the newsletter.

Further to the above resources there are face to face or online training courses for nurses new to general practice. Registration and information on the courses are available via the Australian General Practice Network (AGPN). http://generalpracticenursing.com.au/education

To register for the online course go to the web site link above, click on ‘Orientation program for Nurses New to General Practice (online); this will take you to a registration page. You must already be employed by a general practice to qualify for registration and the cost is $120. To register for the face to face workshop email oliviamorre@gpnsw.com.au or lizm50@bigpond.com Dates and venues for the face to face workshops are:
Narooma - 22 & 23 March 2011
Bankstown – 24 & 25 May 2011