HCA project group

Published: 17 February 2010

First meeting for the HCA project group

On 9th February, Tanis and Lisa met with the HCA/AP project group for the first time since Tanis took up post in November. The group has been running for a few years in various forms, and several of the members came along for the very first time to discuss future plans for the group and the all important item on the agenda: HCAs’ Day at Congress on 26th April 2010.

 
8 members, including 3 Assistant Practitioners and 5 Health Care Assistants heard Tanis’ plans for 2010/11, and held lively discussions about the way the group will be moving forward. After Congress, a HCA or AP will be invited to join from each RCN region and country, 12 in all. The aims of the group will be to get involved with issues that are of importance to HCAs and APs and to liaise with their colleagues across the UK, so that the group reflects the thoughts of the support workers. By being the voice for HCAs and APs, they will help Tanis to influence both within the RCN and externally on issues that matter such as regulation and training.

You will soon be hearing more about the planned HCA/AP network. Every HCA and AP member of the RCN will be invited to join their local network and will hear from their RCN link person who will keep them informed about events in their region and activities of interest. The will feed back to the HCA team and the member of the project group will also help to keep you involved in the HCA/AP agenda locally and nationally.

Three members of the project group will be running workshop sessions at the HCAs’ Day at Congress. They had a chance in the afternoon to run through their sessions and discuss their thoughts with the group in an informal way. Tanis is keen to use the time with the project group for self-development, and plans sessions on presentation skills, writing for publications and interview techniques for example.

Members of the group are already involved in RCN activities, Cheryl is a learning representative, Lorraine is a member of the Forum Governance Group, and Steve is starting his RCN Political Leadership course this year.

We’ll keep you updated on the group as it develops and grows from strength to strength – watch this space and look out for your invitation to join the RCN HCA/AP Network later this spring.

The group members were also photographed, so you will be seeing them on our updated publications soon! Look out for some of our newer leaflets too – we are working on a range of HCA and AP specific leaflets which we’ll tell you about once they are ready! Thank you to you all for getting so involved and being so keen and energetic!