After months of planning, I was delighted to attend the RCN Wales Health Care Support Worker Conference in November. The day of an event such as a conference appears to happen effortlessly, but that outward impression belies the efforts that make a conference successful. And this was a very successful conference!

It was held at Tŷ Maeth, home to RCN Wales in Cardiff. It was lovely to connect with people in real life. The move to online events during the covid pandemic impacted the way many of us work, but there does seems to be a feeling of striving to reconnect.

A wonderful aspect to the day is that it was co-chaired by our Nurse of The Year 2024 HCSW finalists Sarah Bisp and Louise Gray. My role was to support Sarah and Louise for the day – although, of course, both were well practiced and prepared, and chaired the day seamlessly. Sarah and Louise shared with the delegates their career stories, which were both inspirational and courageous, reinforcing the nursing workforce’s shared value of compassion for others and recognition of achievements. Recognising and supporting each other by telling our stories is a vital component of maintaining a positive working environment and conferences are an ideal platform for this.

David Parry is the RCN HCSW Committee representative for Wales and currently holds the position of vice chair. David told us about his role and the work he does with the UK group, in particular the current successful work to evaluate job roles across Wales and along with other unions a significant number of band 2 roles have been re-banded from band 2 to band 3. David is an Assistant Practitioner and RCN rep in north Wales and was particularly interested in the session delivered by Rachel Hadland, RCN Wales Education and Lifelong Learning Advisor, about the Registered Nursing Associate (RNA) role development in Wales.

Rachel was able to provide an important update on the work happening across Wales with regards to the development of the RNA role, which is currently dependent on a legislative change by the Westminster Government before the role can be implemented. However, that does not mean Wales is sitting idly waiting: time has been well spent developing key principles for delivery of an RNA workforce for Wales, supporting the development of parameters of practice for RNA’s working in Wales, contributing to the development of an All-Wales job description and picking out uniform colours. There was also a focus on how Wales can learn the lessons of the introduction of the role in England and sharing of the findings of a rapid review of the evidence undertaken by RCN Wales.

Public Health Wales (PHW) delivered an extremely interesting session, Spot the Signs: Change the story. They shared the bitesize webinars that PHW has been delivering to identify earlier the signs and symptoms of urinary tract infections, focusing on HCSWs who are in a prime position to pick up on when people are not themselves through their hands-on care delivery. Spot the Signs: Change the story has the potential to identify signs of deterioration and/or infection early and therefore reduce the risk of antibiotic usage, reduce the risk of falls, reduce admission to secondary care and promote successful interventions early. Attendees were invited to tell their experiences of when this has happened to them and stories followed where HCSWs were able to act quickly by reporting soft signs and changing the outcomes for more vulnerable people. This is an exciting development, and we’ll watch this space and share as more information becomes available.

We were excited to have the RCN Head of Activist Learning and Development join us and tell us about organising and planning. This session involved choosing favourite chocolate bars and crisps and persuading others to switch their preferences, an activity that provided a great example of organising and influencing in the workplace. See how you can become active in the RCN.

We were all happy to welcome RCN Wales Pay Lead Kelly Andrewss, who has been working with other unions, leading on negotiations and supporting the achievement of re-banding via the job evaluation process. This has led to a large number of band 2 jobs being re-banded to a band 3, ensuring that RCN members are fairly paid for the work that they are undertaking. Kelly also spoke about the work she and I have been involved in representing the independent health and social care sectors, whose renumeration is outside of Agenda for Change pay scales and those in roles equivalent to NHS HCSW roles who generally receive poorer pay.

Health Education Improvement Wales (HEIW) delivered a session on education opportunities for those HCSWs who would like to pursue a career in nursing and the pathways and funding available for this. There have never been more pathways to get into nursing and I recommend approaching your employer’s lead for nurse education for more information. Staff from the Open University and the University of South Wales were also at the conference and are very happy to be contacted to answer any queries.

Our wonderful RCN Wales Librarian Louise Wallace gave us a whistlestop tour of the library facilities available. Did you know you can order books to your home and return them by post, free of charge? And for anyone sweating over referencing – contact Louise and ask for a session on referencing and use our free referencing tools. There were also some surprises on the day; a few lucky winners found a sticker under their chairs and took away a book of their choice and some festive chocolates!

It was a packed day and initial evaluations have been extremely positive, with lots of ideas for the next one HCSW Conference! Please consider joining us next time – you won’t regret taking the opportunity to learn, network and share practice. In the meantime, we’d love to hear your story. Email me at Majella.kavanagh@rcn.org.uk for support in writing a blog post for our website.