Nurse First is a new initiative created by the Queen's Nursing Institute, Buckinghamshire New University, the Shaftesbury Partnership and healthcare company Johnson & Johnson. Johnson & Johnson also sponsors Nurse First.

The programme involves 21 days of residential development, professional coaching, expert advisors, and access to some of the UK's leading innovators and social entrepreneurs.  The organisers are looking for 25 community health professionals to be the first Nurse First cohort.

Dave Dawes, Nurse First project manager at the Shaftesbury Partnership said, ”The programme is designed for healthcare professionals who are unhappy with the status quo and want to step outside the traditional clinical role to create real changes in their field. We want to hear from staff who are working in the community who are not in a senior managerial position but would like to be able to promote change or innovation. The core of the development programme involves them taking an idea from concept to making it real and fully-funded by the end of 12 months. They will learn powerful tools for increasing their personal effectiveness and they will learn how to develop creative ideas, communicate those ideas and attract the support they need to make those ideas real.”

Anne Pearson, practice development manager at the Queen’s Nursing Institute added, ”The QNI has a long and successful track record of supporting innovation in community nursing, and we are very excited by this new partnership. New challenges to community services at the present time require new and creative solutions. Nurse First is about empowering healthcare professionals to enable them to improve patient care.”

Crystal Oldman, dean of enterprise and business management at Buckinghamshire New University said: “We are delighted to be hosting the residential element of the programme at the University’s Missenden Abbey Conference Centre. The university has a history of providing community nurse education where the central focus for the students is on innovation and creativity in practice whilst inspiring and empowering communities to find sustainable solutions to their health care challenges. Nurse First takes this approach to a new level, providing practitioners with the opportunity to develop the skills of social entrepreneurship to enable real change and high level impact in the communities they serve.”

The development programme is free and open to all community healthcare professionals, not just nurses. In the first cohort, preference will be given to people working in and around London, Leicester, Leeds, Birmingham and Inverness.

Applications close on 1 September 2011. To find out more and for an application form, please visit www.nursefirst.org.uk