Recognise & Respond; Safer Care & Detecting Deterioration
On the 20th of September 2017 Bangor University School of Healthcare Sciences hosted an interactive conference for children’s nurses from across North Wales and England.
The event was sponsored by Laerdal Medical and organised in collaboration between the School of Healthcare Sciences in Wrexham campus, The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and the North West and North Wales Paediatric Transport Service (NWTS.)
Natalie Robinson (conference organiser) says the aim of the conference was to bring together children’s nurses from across North Wales (Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board) and clinical experts from Regional Children’s Centres to share information and raise awareness of current practices for detecting when children are very sick and preventing deterioration.
A series of talks from clinical experts , including Gerri Sefton, an Advanced Nurse Practitioner at Alder Hey, who talked about assessing and managing deterioration were led by Professor Debbie Roberts, Foundation of Nursing Studies Chair in Practice learning at Bangor University.
Lindsay Kenworthy, Sister and Clinical Educator at Alder Hey, gave a demonstration using a child simulator (manikin) during her talk on clinical assessment
Andrea McArthur and Angela Lee, Educational Development Practitioners within the Paediatric and Critical Care Unit of RMCH spoke about stabilisation of children who present with sepsis.
Clinical Nurse Specialists Nicola Longden and Kathryn Claydon-Smith from the (NWTS) delivered an engaging presentation on Escalation and Time Critical Assessment.
The final speakers were Dr Sharmila Gopisetti Consultant at RMCH and Educational Lead and Denise Bennet, Ward Manager and Quality Improvement Lead, Paediatric Critical Care and they talked about using clinical simulation scenarios in ongoing training.
The afternoon sessions were led by Dr Lynne Williams, Deputy Head of Healthcare Sciences at Bangor and included six interactive simulation workshops.
The simulation workshops were all evaluated extremely positively by the conference attendees.
The day was also a chance for the twenty new student children’s nurses starting with Bangor’s Wrexham campus to join in the interactive learning in the afternoon session.
Alison Owen Traynor (Programme Lead Children’s Nursing) reported that the new students expressed how they felt motivated and enthused by the conference as they embark on their three year degree programme to become a children’s nurse.
The first year students said;
“You don’t feel detached from everyone else now you feel like a part of it”
“The simulators were amazing, it was breathing and making noises. It’s so good that they have things like this for training”
“It’s reassuring because we know that we can practice, we can get in there and not worry about making a mistake. You can really learn.”
The School of Healthcare Sciences at Bangor University has recently launched a number of new postgraduate and continuous professional development programmes and with its excellent reputation for research and the fact that Nursing degrees at Bangor University for courses at both Bangor and Wrexham Campuses still attract NHS Bursary Funding is looking forward to continuing to deliver high quality, research based courses and conferences in the coming academic year.
Publication date: 25 September 2017