I found that the event generated an excellent exchange of perspectives between members of the public, point of care nurses, student nurses, BCNU, ARNBC and UVic nursing. The insights generated on this complex and urgent issue related to staff mix could be most useful for nurses throughout BC as well as across Canada.

Andrew's summary of the event can be found at:

http://www.andrewweavermla.ca/2014/02/28/debrief-town-hall-island-healths-patient-care-model/

In 2013 the UK reported on the latest in a series of public inquiries revealing serious breaches of duty on the part of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (Francis, 2013). The failures cited included an institutional culture which ascribed more weight to positive information about the service than to information capable of implying cause for concern; standards and methods of measuring compliance which did not focus on the effect of a service on patients; too great a degree of tolerance of poor standards and of risk to patients; a failure of communications and monitoring between the many agencies to share their knowledge of concerns; a failure to tackle challenges to the building up of a positive culture, in nursing in particular but also within the medical profession; and a failure to appreciate until recently the risk of disruptive loss of corporate memory and focus resulting from repeated, multi-level reorganization (Francis, 2013, p. 4).

As one nurse commentator in the UK has noted, the problems were:
“fuelled by the hospital management being driven by the achievement of targets – set centrally by the Department of Health – that were paper-based indicators of ‘quality care’ and ‘success’. These were inextricably linked to financial imperatives, which created a culture where, if the numbers look right, then it was assumed that the hospital was providing quality care” (Hayter, 2013, e1).

REFERENCES:
Francis, R. (2013). Letter to the Secretary of State. In The Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust
Public Inquiry: Executive summary (pp. 3-5). London: The Stationery Office.

Hayter, M. (2013). The UK Francis report: The key messsages for nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing, Vol. 69, No. 8, pages e1-e3 [August 2013].
Article first published online: 1 Jul 2013
DOI: 10.111/jan.12206

http://www.timescolonist.com/new-viha-health-care-model-panned-as-way-to-replace-nurses-with-care-aides-1.626944

http://www.timescolonist.com/new-viha-health-care-model-panned-as-way-to-replace-nurses-with-care-aides-1.626944