Family Nurse Partnership - a family nurse's perspective: 10 year anniversary

Introduction

The stories on which this collection is based arose from the Revaluation of the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) in Scotland research project, published by the Scottish Government in 2019.^[1]

The stories therefore were recounted some time before the COVID pandemic.

That project was based on the Revaluation methodology, which relies on storytelling to explore the experiences of those providing and receiving the FNP programme. It gathered stories from 164 clients, 108 family nurses and 20 teams across Scotland.

This celebration of family nursing focuses on the stories the nurses told to the project. Through their experiences and words, the very essence of what family nursing is – who family nurses are, how they go about their work, what impacts they have and why they do the job – is revealed.

The stories are anonymised, as this was a condition of the original process set up by the Revaluation research team and must continue to be respected. But the characters of the nurses, their motivations and barriers, successes and concerns, joys and pains and, most of all, their enthusiasm for - and dedication to - what they do come shining through.

This collection stands as a celebration of the first 10 years of the FNP programme in Scotland, expressed through the experiences and recollections of the nurses who deliver it. It does not attempt to provide a formal appraisal of the impacts of this specialist nursing role, but instead explores the nurses' motivations, aspirations, achievements and challenges in the role as they see them.

It reflects the real-life experience of being a family nurse, in their own words.

Amidst the devastation of the COVID pandemic, the world still found time to celebrate the World Health Organization Year of the Nurse and Midwife in 2020.

As the people of Scotland applauded for all healthcare workers, Scotland now celebrates the 10th anniversary of the FNP programme, and pays tribute to its wonderful family nurses.