Nurse managers' experiences with nurse carrying our compulsory community service

Abstract

The South African Nursing Council promulgated the compulsory community service (CCS) policy, in regulation R765 of 2007, for nurses of the four-year diploma or degree in nursing. The implementation of the CCS policy takes place at public health institutions. There have been no studies to date on how nurse managers experience this process of the CCS policy implementation. The findings of the study will inform future changes to the policy, such as guidelines for nurse managers on how to handle community nurse practitioners (CNPs) that are placed in their institutions. This study explores the experiences of nurse managers with nurses who are placed at their institutions to carry out compulsory community service. Descriptive qualitative design was used to gather data from nurse managers using individual interviews and data were analysed using Tesch’s content analysis. The main categories that were identified were: valuing the CNPs, role modelling behaviours, benefiting from mentoring, dealing with challenges and following the process. The community nurse practitioners were valued by two groups of nurse managers. Support and professional development were provided on an ad hoc basis, leading to inconsistencies in their management. The following are recommended: the guidelines of the CCS policy to provide structured guidelines for the development of the CNPs during the CCS year; mentorship for the CNPs that is evaluated at regular intervals through formalised reports; and a scope of practice for the CNPs.