KIM PHILLIPS and JULIET CARTWRIGHT report from the RCN Independent School Nurses meeting, held at Westbourne House School in Chichester, West Sussex on Tuesday 10 March.
Focus on childhood bereavement and the role of school nurses
Following coffee and biscuits, 18 nurses listened to a presentation from Jay and Rachel from the charity Winston's Wish, talking about their work with children who have suffered a bereavement. Many of us were surprised at the figures they quoted:
- every 22 minutes one child in this country suffers a bereavement
- 92 per cent of children have been affected by bereavement by the age of 16
- 67 per cent of excluded pupils have been bereaved.
Winston's Wish has five clinical objectives:
- support, information and education
- helping children understand and express their grief
- remembering that special person
- communication
- meeting others in the same or similar situation.
Their national helpline is staffed 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday, by trained personnel - and their website at www.winstonswish.org.uk is open all hours.
Following lunch in the busy dining hall, Beverley McCloughlin from Molnlycke showed us the latest Safetac Technology Silicon dressings. This prompted much discussion on how we clean and dress wounds - in particular artificial turf wounds - and the length of time we should leave between dressing changes.
Did someone mention money?
Although late in the day, we finished off by discussing pay - again! And uniforms - do we wear them? Who decides what we wear? Who pays for them? The majority of nurses there wear mufti, but adapt their own "work wear" - for example, navy trousers and white blouse. Some wear dedicated polo shirts and a minority wear a traditional uniform or even scrubs!
Regarding EpiPen policies in school, one point of discussion was about who is responsible for them when children go off site for matches. Many nurses find that staff underestimate the importance of the epi pens being transported with the child. Rumour has it that soon each anaphylactic child will be prescribed just one and a school will be prescribed the second one for use by "a child", but we can't find any information about this anywhere - if you know, do email us via the editor!
It was reported that several of our forum members had their NMC / RCN membership fees / percentage of school fees paid for by their employer. Perhaps next meeting we can explore perks we get in our respective jobs.
The day gave us time to reflect on best practice in our different types of school settings, and to network and learn alongside other RCN colleagues. The meeting was well attended by nurses across the south coast and, although a Hampshire initiative, the offer of a venue next time has come from Cranleigh School in Surrey.