Congress 2022

Welcome to members old and those who have recently joined the Forum. After an absence of two years the RCN Congress held a successful return in Glasgow. The event was well attended in person and on-line via Hoppin.

There were keynote speakers, lots of learning events to attend and many passioned and personal experiences shared. If you have never been, I would encourage you to go along to Brighton next year. You just might be surprised with the opportunities that can be accessed and most importantly meeting fellow colleagues and new friends from all four nations.

RCN Congress discusses some really serious matters and these allow member to debate them. This year there were some emotive and moving issues raised for example “protecting the title Nurse”, “Financial Hardship”, “Overworking”, “Inequality” and “Access to Care”.   There is however, a really good atmosphere, the delight of seeing old and new faces can be infectious.
The Public health Forum were especially active this year, we had a great presence and certainly raised our profile. Whether this was presenting matters for discussion, resolutions or working with other forums.

The pandemic has been very challenging for many people and members were empowered to discuss how this had affective them, family and colleagues. The past two years have shown that our profession is in need of on-going mental health support. We presented a very successful learning event, which demonstrated how this is being achieved in some areas with a 71% attendance and over a 180 on Hoppin. A big thank you to the Mental Health Forum who kindly collaborated with us, and we look forward to working together on other projects in the future. We hope that colleagues took away some positive ways to help themselves and others, we were strongly encouraged by the interest this generated.

As a result of Congress networking, we will be hopefully collaborating with the History of Nursing Forum looking at the history of the “pit nurse” to occupational health nursing and our colleagues for the Eastern Board on “Health Ability Passports”, another resolution passed by Congress.  The first RCN Forum café was run which was a great opportunity for members to meet the forum members and committee, we were encouraged that new members have now joined, welcome and thank you.   We all lead busy lives, and it would be great to hear from members to contribute regularly to these blogs. We hope to bring you updates on the work of the Forum and up and coming dates for your diary, please check the Forum pages and RCN websites for all RCN Congress events.