Spirited, stimulating, thought provoking... ANP Conference 2010
Published: 18 January 2011
Ghislaine Young reports on a fantastic forum conference.
Our conference in November 2010 was small but beautifully formed! With just under 100 delegates, there was a real buzz and energy in the hall, and everyone appeared happy to be amongst colleagues, swapping news and sharing stories of good practice. The plenary speakers were excellent and there was a good mix of clinical topics, including red flags in elderly care medicine, an update in neurology and a thought-provoking and informative presentation on dementia.
Let’s talk about burnout...
One of the speakers, notable author and poet Reverend Professor Stephen Wright (pictured), led an interactive session on burnout amongst health care workers. Prof Wright is the co-founder and director, along with Jean Sayre-Adams, of the Sacred Space Foundation, which offers specialist counselling to nurses in burnout and to organisations in need of conflict resolution and staff support. I can recommend his books as wise and spiritual, yet humorous and down to earth – an engaging and unusual mix of qualities! His session was very stimulating and made us all think about how we care for ourselves and value our own health, physically, mentally and also spiritually.
Indominitable spirit
Prof Wright shared the podium with his colleague of many years, Jane Salvage (pictured), former Editor-in-Chief of the Nursing Times and author of The Politics of Nursing, published in 1985 but still valid today. Jane is now freelance and still full of spirit and enthusiasm for nursing. Her presentation, ‘Handling the carequake: nursing people with long-term conditions’, inspired us to think of ourselves as lead professionals in this complex health-care arena, as those who coordinate care and as specialist clinicians in our own right.
Jane informed us that in England alone there are over 15 million people with long-term conditions. This means, of course, that there is a commensurate huge and growing need for skilled care not just in nursing and medicine but in involving multi-agency working, as the social determinants of health are as significant in influencing patient outcomes. Nurses, she said, need to tackle problems, policies and politics at every level and become ‘game changers’ so that – by our presence – we can influence the provision of care at local and national level.
She further enjoined us to become ‘guerrilla nurses’, to speak up for our beliefs and, of course, for our patients, and to aim to become ‘policy entrepreneurs’. To illustrate this, her latest work has involved a year’s work on Front line care - report by the Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery in England (March 2010). This report boldly stated that advanced nursing practice should be regulated. Since then, of course, we have had a change in government (one which appears to be less devoted to regulation than the Labour Government) but Front line care remains as a piece of high-quality independently developed findings that can be used to spearhead future work on nursing and, in particular, to reiterate the need for the further regulation of all ANPs.
ANPs’ varied roles...
Wendy Fairhurst gave a passionate presentation on the nurse’s role in commissioning clinically effective and patient-centred services. She is entreating all of us to take part in commissioning in the new primary care consortia and to make our voices heard, as we represent one of the largest professional groups employed in health care.
Another very stimulating session discussed research on nurse partners in general practice. Fiona Roscoe has found that nurse partners are involved in every aspect of health care delivery. Their wealth of experience and knowledge enables them to work in advanced roles and their core values unique to nursing ensure they have the right qualities for leadership and effective team working.
Finally, Eileen Munson gave a powerful and emotive presentation, titled: ‘Primary care challenges on the front line’, on life as an ANP in the war zone in Iraq in 2006, serving as Reservist Officer in the Royal Navy. Her courage and professionalism whilst being placed in harm’s way were awe inspiring, as were the stories of the marvellous team work and comradeship amongst the varied disciplines of health professionals as well as the men and women risking their lives in combat duty.
Workshops and concurrent sessions
We had many varied and stimulating educational and clinical workshops and concurrent sessions. To continue with the long-term conditions topic, Tracy Kirk gave an outstanding presentation on ‘COPD: beyond the lung’ and challenged us to consider performing a multi-dimensional clinical assessment on these patients, including going ‘obsessively back to basics’ in teaching inhaler technique and promoting self care. Her simple but effective techniques have been shown to keep patients at home and out of hospital. Other clinical topics highlighted renal medicine, plastic surgery, opthalmology and musculo-skeletal problems, to name but a few, and included primary, secondary and emergency care.
There were too many concurrent sessions to adequately do them all justice in this brief conference report – you should have been there to take it all in! Topics varied from a session I did on hypnotherapy and the mind-body interaction to sessions that described ANPs’ own professional experiences (for example, as an island ANP on the Isle of Man), educational presentations on preceptorship and the formation and training needs of future ANPs.
To sum up...
Well, what can I add? You really should have been there!
ANP Conference 2011
Finally, don’t miss the ANP conference 2011, taking place 9-10 December 2011: 'Advanced Nurse Practitioners of today: leaders, innovators and advocates of clinical excellence in patient care'. Themes will include infuencing skills , education, improving outcomes, involving patients.