National Standards of Practice for Maternal Child and Family Health Nursing Practice in Australia

In 2011 Maternal, Child and Family Heath Nurses Australia began the process of bringing together all states and territories into a unified whole, national organisation. Unification required development of national standards for practice that recognised the unique qualities of practice in each jurisdiction and the historical work undertaken by the jurisdictions in maintaining quality and safety in practice. The MCaFHN standards were developed using Puddy and Wilkins’ (2011) evidence framework, incorporating the best available research evidence, experiential evidence and contextual evidence. In 2012 a literature review was undertaken to explore the role and scope of the maternal, child and family health nurse in developed countries (Fraser, Grant & Mannix 2014). This was followed by a study exploring the experiences of the MCaFHN role in Australia (Fraser, Grant & Mannix 2016). Parallel to this the research team* and working group** established through MCaFHNA and Plunket (New Zealand), met to workshop all existing standards documents, synthesising them with contemporary literature. The resultant draft MCaFHN standards were then distributed for broad consultation to industry, consumers and key stakeholders via an online survey. The 452 responses to this consultation were analysed and synthsised by the research team resulting in a final draft. With the timely release of the new Registered Nurse standards for practice (2016) the structure of the final draft MCaFHNA standards was modified to enable use alongside the RN standards. This draft formed the basis of a modified Delphi survey (following Chang et al. 2010) offered to all members of MCaFHNA. The Delphi survey reached an average consensus of 97.8% in the first round. We now present the MCaFHN standards for practice (2017) as a guide for practice, education and research.