Psychiatric mental health nursing standards

Abstract

It is with great pleasure that I write this forward for the Standards in Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing (PMHN) in Malta. Their production started some 10 years ago, and whilst they may not have been developed fully during the intervening years many PMHNs in Malta have been keen to use their meaning as a guide for their own practice. Standards express the knowledge, concepts and skills that practicing PMHNs should achieve, irrespective of where they practice, how senior they are and what user group they serve. They encourage nurses to strive for the highest possible level of professional accomplishment whilst allowing others to follow their example. They define who PMHNs are. Now, thanks to MAPN, the standards are finally published and it should be with pride that PMHNs point to them as a demonstration of the complexity of the work they undertake.