Letter from the Editor

'Hope you've enjoyed a warm summer ...'

... well at least, I hope it was warm for some of you who have travelled to distant shores on your repatriations. This year's economic crisis put some concern on the holiday/travel industry and indeed many people chose to stay home, anticipating a hot summer.

However, many flight nurses I have spoken to recently have not seen a large downturn in their workload and are still travelling far and wide. For those who are self employed I'm sure this has been a huge relief.

Endings ... and beginnings!

Closer to home and this edition of the IFNA newsletter - if you have been following progress closely you will know that the In-Flight Nurses Association, as it has been known for many years, will be ending a chapter this year.

Indeed, this will be the last newsletter that I will be editing alone and the last IFNA Study Day will be on 14 November. I hope you will be able to attend and make it the best turnout we've had to date - it looks to be an exciting programme.

Of course, the end of one chapter does bring us to an exciting new chapter for IFNA. We will be joining with the RCN Critical Care Forum who, like us, are dedicated to ensuring members' views are heard.

Together I think we will make a formidable team. We will be having our first joint meeting with the Critical Care Committee as this newsletter goes to press to discuss our roles in the transition period until the elections in 2010. Alan Sheward writes more on the forum merger in his Letter from the Chair.

One important note for our members

The RCN has taken the decision to provide newsletters only in an electronic format in the future so if you are part of our forum, do make sure you provide an email address too. You can read how to do this here.

We will also be looking for a new name for the newsletter so if you have any ideas as to how our name may best represent us as a group, just let me know!

In this issue

Many thanks to all the contributors to this edition. Many non-flight nurses who read this newsletter may be wondering what we actually do and we have some great insights from two flight nurses, Sue McPherson and Joanne Mayhew. Rachel Binks, Chair of the Critical Care Forum, advises us about the work of this forum to date. Coming up to the ski season again, we will soon be repatriating higher numbers of spinal injury patients and Dr Terry Martin provides some excellent information on this particular group.

I hope you enjoy the rest of this newsletter and we look forward to seeing you in November at our last IFNA Study Day.

Rita Mody