Practice Development

Practice Development is the continuous process of improvement and innovation with the central aim of developing Person-Centred Care. Person-Centred Care is health care that is respectful of, and responsive to, the preferences, needs and values of patients and consumers. Clinical Care Standards support the key principles of patient-centred care, namely treating patients with dignity and respect, encouraging, and supporting patient participation in decision making, communicating and sharing information with patients about clinical conditions and treatment options, providing patients with information in a format that they understand so they can participate in decision making.

Practice Development aims to engage clinicians, patients, families, careers, and friends in the experience of care, providing meaningful opportunities to innovate and change services to meet the needs of all involved.

Culture and Leadership Initiatives

Nurses and midwives have a major impact on patient experience. At Sydney Local Health District we believe supporting our staff and promoting high quality, evidence-based care is integral to achieving positive patient experiences and safe patient outcomes.
 

Our Culture and Leadership Initiatives help us to: 

• Deliver safe and effective patient care and outcomes
• Improve patient and family experiences
• Create positive working environments for our staff to improve workplace culture and staff wellbeing, making our District a workplace everyone is proud to call their own.

Each program provides a range of methods and tools to help staff make local changes to practice and processes to enhance the care environment.
 

Safety Culture

Sydney Local Health District takes the safety and security of our staff very seriously.

Our Safety Culture Coordinator is a part of the District Nursing and Midwifery Executive Unit. They look at ways to make our working environments safe, including mitigating risks such as violence and aggression. They work closely with the District's Clinical Governance and Risk and People and Culture teams to develop programs and models of care to support our staff.

Clinical Practice and Research

Clinical Practice

Our Clinical Practice Nurse Manager plays a key role in delivering safe, high-quality care in partnership with patients and their families.

They lead a culture of transparency and accountability, ensuring that safety and quality are always at the forefront. By developing and implementing robust systems to track and share nursing and midwifery care data, they help us continuously improve the way we work.

We actively listen to patient and family feedback to shape and enhance our clinical practices.

Our Nurse Manager also supports our care teams through approaches like appreciative inquiry and graded assertiveness, empowering staff to communicate effectively and focus on what’s working well—so we can keep doing more of it.

Research

Sydney Local Health District nurses and midwives work in a clinical and professional culture that prizes clinical practice on the basis of research evidence, and the continuous development of new research-based knowledge. 

Many Clinical Nurse or Midwife Consultants and Nurse Practitioners are active researchers, and each year they publish dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles. A number of research capacity-building roles (often affiliated with the University of Sydney's Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery) provide research mentorship, education and hands-on methodological and analytical support to both active and aspiring nursing and midwifery researchers. 

Nursing and Midwifery Symposium

The biennial Sydney Local Health District Nursing and Midwifery Initiatives and Research Symposium was held on Tuesday 11 November 2025 at the Kerry Packer Education Centre, RPA Hospital.
 

We celebrated the creativity, leadership, and impact of our profession and the difference we make in every patient and family’s experience of care. The Symposium showcased the outstanding research and practice development activities that have been undertaken by our nurses and midwives.

The 2025 symposium theme was 'Emerge… Elevate… Empower…' which reflects the spirit of innovation, growth, and collaboration across our District.

Symposium Awards

The primary purpose of these awards is to recognise excellence in research, quality, practice development and/or innovation in nursing and midwifery and encourage new knowledge builders in their improvement and discovery pursuits.