The performance of a self-managing day surgery nurse team

The objective of this study was to assess the validity of the hypothesis that a self-managing nurse team can successfully combine traditional caring, expanded nursing and modern management roles and that morale among team members will be high. The study comprised a 15-month longitudinal case study of eleven members of a day surgery nursing team at a newly established day surgery unit in a district general hospital. The main outcome measures were as follows. Morale: sickness absence statistics, results of staff surveys. Caring role: patient satisfaction survey results. Expanded nurse role: day case activity performance indicators. Management role: financial performance measures. Morale in the day surgery team was higher than average for hospital staff. The results of patient satisfaction surveys were overwhelmingly positive. Day case activity performance improved to that of the top percentile for Scotland. Financial performance targets were exceeded. The day surgery team successfully combined caring, expanded nursing and management roles and staff morale was higher than hospital average.