‘What is this about? Let’s play this out’: the experience of integrating primary health care registered nurses with school learning and support teams
Catherine Sanford
A * , Emily Saurman A , Sarah Dennis B C and David Lyle A
A Broken Hill University Department of Rural Health, The University of Sydney, Corrindah Court, PO BOX 457, Broken Hill, NSW 2880, Australia.
B Sydney School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Western Avenue, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
C Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research, 1 Campbell Street, Liverpool, NSW 2170, Australia.
Australian Journal of Primary Health 28(4) 321-329 https://doi.org/10.1071/PY21190
Submitted: 6 August 2021 Accepted: 15 March 2022 Published: 31 May 2022
© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of La Trobe University. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Changes in public health profiles and moves towards inclusive models of education have led to significant number of students in mainstream schools with special health needs. Addressing these needs requires collaboration between health professionals, educators and families. Integrated models of school-based health care can facilitate this collaboration; however, there is little evidence to guide their implementation. The School-Based Primary Health Care Service (SB-PHCS) is one such service that has been established in far west New South Wales. The School-Based Primary Health Care Service embeds health district-employed registered nurses with school learning support teams to increase service access, and improve health and education outcomes for students. We conducted focus groups with nurses and learning support teams to explore their experiences of implementing the School-Based Primary Health Care Service. Focus group transcripts were analysed using framework analysis. We found that defining the role and working across systems were challenges to program implementation, whereas a collaborative culture, relationship building and flexibility in work processes facilitated the integration of nurses into the school teams. We recommend others embarking on similar initiatives involve key stakeholders early in service development, understand each other’s systems and processes, and provide clarity about the new role, but plan to adapt the role to fit the context. This study will be of interest to those involved in the implementation of integrated models of school-based health care.
Keywords: adolescent health services, care navigation, child health services, collaboration, integrated health care delivery, primary health care, qualitative, school health services, school nursing.
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