Public Health Nursing Service

Primary Care Public Health Nursing Service

Education and Professional Development of Public Health Nurses The training of Public Health Nurses (PHN) began in 1954 as the training of Health Visitors (HV). The Medical and Health Department of that time launched the first in-service training programme to develop Registered Nurses to be HVs. The main duties of the HVs were to provide health education to the public and to participate in public health actions in the prevention and control of communicable diseases. To keep pace with the new developments in the provision of primary health care services, the HV training curriculum was revamped in 1979 to provide for a 1-year post-registration certificate programme for developing PHNs who could work competently in the different primary health care settings. With the establishment of the Department of Health in 1989, an expert in public health nursing from the World Health Organization was invited to review the PHN curriculum. Based on her recommendations, the curriculum was further revised in 1991 to support a 9-month diploma programme that prepared PHNs with enhanced competencies to perform a wide range of duties in the preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative services provided by the DH. To better prepare PHNs to take up higher responsibilities in delivering quality care to the public, the DH succeeded in transferring the in-service training of PHNs at diploma level to bachelor's degree level at the university in 2002. It is a 2-year part-time programme which aims at equipping students with professional knowledge and skills in public health nursing, as well as at developing their analytical thinking, decision making and problem solving abilities. Subject areas embrace the theories and practice of nursing and public health; health assessments; health promotion and health education; information management; psychosocial influences on health; family health; epidemiology, nursing research; management and leadership; Chinese medicine and complementary therapies. The design of the curriculum enables the learners to take into consideration the psychosocial, economical, cultural, political, and environmental factors in relation to health; as well as the dynamic changes of the health care system in the delivery of public health nursing services. Hence, the programme not only develops nurses' competencies in implementing public health strategies, it also builds their capacity to empower clients to assume self-care as well as to elicit greater control over the determinants of health. It is an important step for nurses to advance to tertiary education, as it paves their way to further professional development at master's or doctoral degree levels. This enables them to develop into autonomous practitioners with enhanced credibility and accountability for the quality of services they provide. Moreover, it capacitates and energizes them to innovate for advancing professional practice to better meet evolving needs of society. Presently, the Nursing Council of Hong Kong is in the process of establishing a system for constituting continuing nursing education mandatory for acquiring practicing certificates. In this regard, the Public Health Nursing Division of the Department of Health has provided opportunities for nursing and allied grade staff to undertake related continuing nursing education programme to promote high quality service standard.

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