May editorial

Published: 30 April 2013

RCN HCA and AP Adviser Tanis Hand reflects on RCN Congress and encourages you to get involved with Nurses' Day

April and May are always very exciting months for the RCN and this year is no exception. We have just enjoyed RCN Congress, where many of you met up to discuss important issues, network, visit the huge exhibition and learn about important nursing issues. In May we have Nurses’ Day – this is about all of the nursing team and a great opportunity to spread the news about the amazing work you do.

This year was the first time that our Health Practitioner Committee members were voting, and they made sure their voices were heard. There was great support in the hall for mandatory regulation of health care support workers and this support showed through several times throughout the week.

My role was to make sure that the programme we run for health care assistants (HCAs), assistant practitioners (APs) and students alongside the Congress main agenda ran smoothly.

In our plenary session we heard from Michelle Mello, Marie Batey and Sam Sherrington from the nursing directorate of NHS England. They spoke about compassion in practice and the key role that HCAs and APs have in delivering compassionate care to our patients. Karen Dutton, an RCN UK learning rep, told us about making Congress work for you, as every year we aim to ensure that our HCAs and APs get more involved in the whole event. Karen spoke about everything that Congress means – from the debates, educational events and even the social side of things. And I gave an update about how things are moving along on a national basis, at a time when we are awaiting the Cavendish report on support worker education and support.

In the afternoons we ran a series of four workshops covering cancer, diabetes, patient safety, and also a quiz on learning disability and criminal justice nursing. These were well-attended and created plenty of discussion.

Those of you who were there, please let us know what you enjoyed most at Congress so that we can make sure next year is even better!