All Queen’s Nurse Meeting 2018

Our All Queen’s Nurse Meeting took place on April 23rd 2018.

You can search for Tweets from the day using the hashtag #QN2018 

At the event we launched our major new report, ‘Nursing in the Digital Age – Using Technology to Support Patients at Home’. The report is based on a survey of over 500 nurses working in the community, the document revisits a subject first analysed by the QNI in its 2012 publication, ‘Smart New World’.

The new report analyses how far new healthcare information technology has changed in the previous six years and how skills and attitudes within community services have adapted. You can read a full press release about the launch of the report and find out how to download a copy here.

Photos from the day are available on The QNI’s Facebook page.

You can read a full event summary below and download presentations from the day at the bottom of this page.

Summary of the day

Dr Crystal Oldman CBE welcomed delegates and speakers to the conference.

Dr John Unsworth, introduced himself as the new Chair of the QNI’s Council and gave the first presentation, ‘The Art of the Possible’. He thanked his predecessor Kate Billingham CBE for her tenure and achievements. Dr Unsworth launched a new Twitter hashtag campaign, #extraordinaryQNs and encouraged all Queen’s Nurses to use it when tweeting about their work.

Professor Jane Cummings, CNO for England spoke about England’s vision for nursing and midwifery.
She spoke about the 70^th anniversary of the NHS and the perception of nursing as a profession and a career in England today. She touched on the many measures in place to recruit more nurses and expand the reach of the profession to help address the shortfall in the nursing workforce – for example by recruiting more male nurses. She also referenced the new global ‘Nursing Now’ campaign in this context. She praised the achievement of Steph Lawrence and others in obtaining approval for an apprenticeship trailblazer.

Dr Ruth May, NHS Improvement, spoke Retention Issues for Nursing Working in the Community, about workforce pressures, recruitment and retention. She also spoke about the importance of health and wellbeing in retaining staff. She spoke about the continuing mission of reducing the reliance on agency staff and how they are working with trusts to reinforce their own nursing establishment and their bank staff.

Dr Crystal Oldman, QNI Chief Executive, spoke on the theme of Silence to Voice and the importance of policy influencing as a role for the QNI and for Queen’s Nurses. She gave an overview of the QNI’s main outputs and their importance of the past year and showed how the QNI’s work was having an effect in policy and practice. She spoke about the importance of the new QN leadership programmes and said that the QNI would be publishing a report on this. She also mentioned the achievements of the Keep in Touch project. Finally she announced that American nurse and author Suzanne Gordon would be attending the QNI conference in September as a keynote speaker.

Sir Muir Gray, Better Value Healthcare, and Michelle Mello, NHS RightCare gave a joint presentation describing their recent work.

Sir Muir spoke about the features of an ageing population and the necessity to keep people active in order to preserve their health in later years. He said that prescribing activity therapy was one possible response to the ‘fitness gap’ that is at the root of so much ill health. He also advocated more investment in district nursing as one response to combating social isolation, which also has a very negative effect on physical and mental wellbeing.

Carolyn Morrice, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust described the situation in Buckinghamshire and how 97% of all GPs are now working as a federation to improve the health of the population. Partnership working with pharmacists and with social care, organised around community hubs, has led to significant benefits. They use a model of Distributive Clinical Leadership as well as utilising new technology, which helps nurses by ‘releasing time to care.’ She also showed a short educational film that showed what patient centred care should look like.

Professor Alison Leary, London South Bank University, spoke about her analysis of different types of nursing work and her belief that District Nursing was ‘the most complex nursing work’ she had witnessed, for reasons including risk management, high tech treatments and care, and building effective personal relationships to ensure patient concordance.

Jackie Smith, Nursing and Midwifery Council gave an overview of nursing regulation and its interface with the regulation of nursing associates. She described how employers and educators would need to work in partnership to deliver the requirements of the future workforce. She said that the NHC cannot prohibit particular grades of staff from doing certain kinds of work. The NMC’s Code works as a set of principles to which employers and individuals must adhere. She also discussed the fees that apply.

Professor Alison While made the poster presentations to:

Corinne Beirne, Practice Nurse Manager & Karen Olorenshaw, Practice Nurse at Shipston Medical Centre – First place winners for their poster ‘Pre Diabetes – Is Diabetes Inevitable?’

Caroline Kelle, Practice Nurse at Hobs Moat Medical Centre – Second place winner for her poster ‘Winter Checklist – Reducing Elderly Emergency Admissions At Christmas’

Julie Green, Senior Lecturer at Keele University – Third place winner for her poster ‘What Matters To Me? The Patient Voice In Wound Care’

You can read a blog post written by our poster winners about their experience here.