The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has welcomed a joint statement by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and eight other health and care regulators on good reflection among professionals.
The chief executives of the health and care regulators have signed a joint statement which outlines the processes and advantages of being a good reflective practitioner for individuals and teams.
Reflection is how health and care professionals can assess their professional experiences, both positive and where improvements could be made, by recording and documenting insight to aid their continuous learning.
Commenting on the joint statement, Chief Executive of RCM, Gill Walton, said: “The RCM supports the need for a robust and supportive regulatory environment that keeps women safe and enables midwives to be the best they can be.
“We are pleased that the healthcare regulators are working together to promote and honest and open culture. Midwives learn the power and value of reflection from their earliest training and their ongoing development is based on self-awareness and self-challenge.”
In the statement, it says that reflection plays an important role in health and care work, and brings benefits to the public, people using services and patients and their carers by:
- Fostering improvements in practices and services
- Assuring the public that health and care professionals are continuously learning and seeking to improve.
Chief Executive and Registrar at the NMC, Andrea Sutcliffe, said: “In these challenging times for health and social care we do all we can to support our health and care professionals, and their employers, in devoting time to individual, reflective, personal and honest thinking.
“I’m therefore glad we can join forces with our regulatory partners in this way as we all strive to improve the quality of good, safe person-centred care for people.”
The nine regulators who signed the joint statement are: NMC, General Chiropractic Council, General Dental Council, General Medical Council, General Optical Council, General Osteopathic Council, General Pharmaceutical Council, Health and Care Professions Council and Society of Northern Ireland.
The joint statement can be found here.
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