The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has published a set of guidelines around the use of social media in healthcare, saying that managers must take the initiative to be better informed about the use of networking sites in order to handle misuse cases at a local level.

Andy Jaegar, Assistant Director of Public and Professional Communications at the NMC who published the “Social networking sites” guidance, states that managers must increase their awareness of the pitfalls of social media in order to actively and appropriately respond to security incidents. The guidance came in response to an increasing number of enquiries from nurses and midwives about the role social media holds in media.

“One of the things that prompted the guidance over the summer were questions from employers about issues of confidentiality and whether it was appropriate or not to be friends with a patient on Facebook. This led to guidance being created largely based on the NMC’s code of conduct for nurses and midwives” Jaegar stated.

Clinicians and students working in the NHS reported wide inconsistencies in the way that their managers were dealing with problems that they were raising about colleagues’ use of social networking sites. It is hoped that the guidance will grant managers an understanding of the way in which social networking sites work, and place them in direct comparison with real world scenarios, as they should be treated as equally serious.

The guidance states that if a manager has responsibility for investigating a complaint about the use of a social networking site, they should join the site themselves. In familiarising themselves with sites such as Facebook and Twitter, managers should be able to identify exactly what is deemed ‘inappropriate’ behaviour and what actions to recommend to staff.

As opposed to a set of national guidelines from the Department of Health, Jaegar asserts that staff security breaches are better handled by local managers understanding the issue and dealing with it for themselves.

A survey carried out last month revealed that 72 separate actions were carried out by 16 trusts against staff who inappropriately used social media between 2008-09 and October 2011, a number that is reportedly on the rise.

Whilst Jaegar states that the majority of staff misuse of social media is largely unintentional, the NMC deals with some instances which are “absolutely deliberate”, and it is imperative that managers are able to discern the differences. Such instances include pursuit of relationships with patients and bullying and harassment of colleague over social media sites.

The next move for the NMC is to expand these social media guidelines into other areas of the health service, starting with psychologists. He says the NMC is also interested in encouraging healthcare professionals to use social networking sites to positively engage with patients and share good health stories. He adds that it would be disappointing if some health professionals avoided social networking sites over fears of misuse.

“We’re starting to think about, organisationally, the kind support we can give to nurses and midwives who are positively using social media as a way of talking about health,” Jaegar said.

Original Source The Guardian

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