New improvement challenges laid out for NHS nursing

Prime minister David Cameron has laid out a series of improvement challenges for NHS nurses during the first meeting of the new Nursing and Care Quality Forum.

Mr Cameron has issued a call to action for nurses to seek out best practice and share it across the NHS, with the matter of freeing up staff to focus on patient care outlined as a key priority.

Suggested measures include hourly nursing rounds to ensure patients are checked on regularly, improved leadership within the profession and discussions of how best to use patient feedback to improve service quality.

The latter will be accomplished through the launch of a patient feedback challenge, which will be supported by a one million pound government fund.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley said: "Our ambition is to provide excellent care everywhere. This new independent body of nursing and care experts will enable us to achieve best practice across nursing services."

This follows on from the launch of the NHS Institute's Time to Care initiative earlier this year, which will aim to free nurses from unnecessary bureaucracy in order to bolster care quality.