Over the past year, I’ve been challenged to move out of my comfort zone (supportively) by Fran Beadle, Chief Nursing Information Officer for Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW), to speak at conferences and submit work. I feel I’ve risen to that challenge and furthered it with growing confidence!

This summer, I had the incredible opportunity to attend RCN Congress in Liverpool, funded by the RCN as a voting member of the Digital Nursing Forum Steering Committee, alongside a colleague from Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW). I was excited to participate in this significant event in a more formal capacity and contribute to the discussions that influence the future of nursing.

RCN Congress is a wide-ranging gathering of nursing professionals from across the UK, all coming together to share knowledge, debate pressing issues, and influences the direction of our profession. The programme was packed with a diverse range of themes and although not all held a digital thread, there were many issues which had some relation to digital or health technologies. It was my first time speaking at Congress, and whilst daunting, it was also important to offer my digital professional standpoint on some of the issues.

Many sessions emphasised the importance of data in understanding the impact of various issues in health care. Discussions around artificial intelligence (AI) were particularly engaging, exploring its role in nursing education and clinical practice. We debated the benefits, challenges and ethical considerations of AI, and it was fascinating to hear different perspectives on how this technology can be harnessed to improve patient care and staff education.

Chairing a panel discussion on AI use in learning was also a new experience – and it was not without technical difficulties! However, it demonstrated the resilience of chair, panel members and audience to be driving a presentation without the planned audience participating via tech. Ah well, our wonderful panel members adapted without a hitch and our audience asked all the questions we needed to get the conversation flowing well. It ended up being a better session without the tech, in my opinion!

Reflecting on Congress 2024 discussions regarding AI, it was really encouraging to learn that attitudes are changing towards digital tech in health care, although there is still a huge amount of work to be done.

As a Digital Nursing Forum Steering Committee voting member, I attended to represent and highlight the forum to RCN members and vote on the Congress resolutions. We’re one of the smallest forums in the RCN and our ‘meet and greet’ session was overflowing with nurses enquiring about roles in digital, questions about the forum, suggestions as to how we can improve, and the ask to spread general awareness of the forum. We gained lots of new members and discussed ways to get more involved in the forum and how we can leverage our collective expertise to drive forward the digital agenda in nursing.

There was also large interest in the Digital Nursing Conference that we are jointly organising with BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, with the themes of quality improvement, education and research in nursing digital innovation. These conversations with the general nursing workforce were invaluable, both professionally and personally, providing insights and ideas that I’m eager to bring back to my work at DHCW. This was the first conference with a non-digital focus that I’ve presented at, and it was refreshing to challenge mindsets, misconceptions and new ideas of what digital nursing is, and could be, and how every nurse has a contribution to make in their own digital journey.

Attending RCN Congress was an enriching experience and it was great to represent Wales, the RCN and DHCW. It reinforced my commitment to advancing digital health in nursing and provided a platform to engage with and learn from my peers. It also gave me renewed focus to improve digital usage for my clinically practicing colleagues and afforded opportunities to pass on some guidance and wisdom to those in a similar position to where I was at the beginning of my digitally focused career.