Conclusion
The ward sister role is and will remain central
to consistently high-quality care and an
outstanding experience for patients. It has
been recognised that while nurses deliver a
great deal of excellent care every day, too
often care falls below the standard expected.
A lack of clinical leadership is often a factor
in these failures and there is an increasing
call to strengthen the ward sister role.
This creates the risk of overemphasising
the individual qualities of ward sisters
and romanticising the ward leadership
of the past. To truly ensure excellent
ward leadership requires a more holistic
approach to tackling the issues. This
involves looking critically at healthcare
organisations and taking a whole-systems
approach to change. Such an approach will
ensure all elements of the organisation are
designed to make it easy to do the right
thing and to lead others in doing the right
thing. It means making changes at all
levels of the organisation including
addressing individual capacity and performance
as well as systems, structures,
culture and strategy (Burke, 2011).
In the words of Pembrey (1980): “The
ward sister is a complex and senior nursing
role… of vital importance to the proper
nursing of patients: it is a role that the profession
should not neglect.” NT