Letter from the Chair
Published: 05 December 2011
Welcome to the winter edition of Barebones and my first as SOTN Chair. I’d like to say a big thank you to Elaine Collins who steps down after five years as Chair, having also been on SOTN committee for nine years. She did an excellent job of leading the society and developing our national and international work. She is a hard act to follow!
More hellos and goodbyes...
And we say goodbye to another member of the committee after five years – Amanda Broom. Amanda will be sorely missed, not least because of her unique insights into life as an orthopaedic patient a few years ago (though she wouldn’t show us her scar!). Amanda remains a member of the Bath Orthopaedic Nurses Group (BONG) committee so remains active within the society.
The SOTN committee also welcomes two new members: Hannah Pugh, Orthopaedic Trauma Clinical Nurse Specialist at University College Hospital London; and Sonya Clarke, Senior Teaching Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast. Details of all seven members of the committee can be found on the SOTN web page.
Works beginning and ending
A number of projects begun under Elaine’s chair-ship are coming to an end. The Pin site consensus guidelines have just been published and work on the practitioner competencies and nurse-led services guidelines are progressing well. Further details on these can be found in the newsletter’s ‘Work in Action’ section.
The new committee will be meeting in January to plan future work and we would welcome any suggestions you may have – simply contact me at brian.lucas@qehkl.nhs.uk
Times are challenging in health care at present and we want to make sure that SOTN is the voice of orthopaedic and trauma nursing not only in the NHS but in the voluntary/private sector and across all four countries. We need your help to achieve this! One suggestion has been that we look to develop guidance around peripheral neurovascular observations, always a hotly debated topic amongst orthopaedic and trauma nurses.
The date and venue of next year’s SOTN international conference and exhibition are being finalised and details will be out shortly. It will be our 25th conference so we aim to make it a special one. This year’s conference in Bristol in September was well evaluated and you can see Hannah’s view of it as a first-time attendee here.
Some of the feedback expressed disappointment at the absence of certain topics, for example spinal injuries, and the number of presentations on common issues such as joint replacement and hip fractures. However, apart from the keynote speeches, all the presentations were chosen from submitted abstracts, so the programme was made up of topics that you had submitted. My challenge to you is that if you want a particular topic covered in our next conference, please submit an abstract on it or persuade someone else to!
Introducing...
As announced in the last Barebones, Chris Knight has stepped down as editor after doing a sterling job for many years.
Committee member Lynne Newton has kindly agreed to take on the role of editor from the next issue and to combine it with her website editor role. I have put together this issue, however, so don’t blame Lynne for any mistakes!
We want your contributions to Barebones – letters, requests for information, details of forthcoming events, reports of events – so please contact Lynne at lynne.newton@bedfordhospital.nhs.uk with anything you have. We aim to have four editions of Barebones a year so the next one will be in April – any contributions by March 2012 please.
Have a good Christmas and a happy new year for 2012.
Brian Lucas.