(W)riting across and within: Providing a vehicle for sharing local nursing and midwifery projects and innovation

Introduction: This paper describes the development and outcomes of a locally-based journal that is contributed to and managed by nurses, midwives and academics within an area health service (AHS) in NSW, Australia. Background: Nurses and midwives are often engaged in scholarly and rigorous activities aimed at improving practice and patient outcomes. However, often these endeavours remain unreported, unpublished and hence not shared for the benefit of others. Reasons given for nurses' and midwives' persistent reluctance to publish are well documented in the literature. Lack of expertise and understanding of the publication process, together with lack of confidence and opportunity are the reasons most often cited. To overcome these barriers we developed a local journal called Handover that provides a non-threatening, supportive opportunity for nurses and midwives to develop skills in writing and reviewing articles for publication. Handover was established and is managed by editorial committee members from the area health service and the two local universities. Each institution agreed to co-fund the journal which is published twice yearly. Two editions of the journal have been published with wide ranging content and contributions from across the AHS. Writing mentorship and support systems have been established. Reviewers workshop have been conducted and novice reviewers mentored by experienced reviewers. Conclusion: Our experience indicates that a locally based and owned journal can motivate and support novice writers and offers one solution to many of the barriers to publication identified in the literature.