RCN’s Chief Nurse Nicola Ranger to quiz UK’s CNOs over the issues which matter to you at Nursing Live
With just one month to go until Nursing Live opens its doors in Liverpool, more details of keynote speakers and special sessions have been announced.
On Friday November 10th, the Professor Nicola Ranger, the Royal College of Nursing’s Chief Nurse, will be delivering a speech which will focus on the vital importance of the nursing profession, its future direction, and the crucial need to take care of those who work within it.
Entitled Achieving a bright and powerful future for nursing, her keynote address will also cover other major issues, including equality and diversity, and will reinforce the need for nursing to be recognised, and celebrated, as a highly skilled workforce.
In addition, Professor Ranger will be chairing a discussion with Dame Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) for England, Sue Tranka, CNO for Wales, Maria McIlgorm, CNO for Northern Ireland, and Anne Armstrong, Deputy CNO Designate for Scotland. As part of this, panellists will be faced with a series of questions from Nursing Live delegates regarding the challenges, priorities, and concerns, of frontline nursing staff.
As well as bringing senior nursing policy makers together to debate the day-to-day issues which matter most to nurses, Nursing Live is set to feature some of the sector’s most respected practitioners. This will include previous winners of the RCN’s Nurse of the Year award, who will be sharing advice and best practice through a series of talks and workshops.
RCN Nurse of the Year 2021, Nicola Bailey OBE, a contraception project manager at North Bristol NHS Trust, will run a session focused on coping with stress in the workplace.
Commenting on her participation at Nursing Live, she said: “What we do for patients is incredible, but we need to look after ourselves on a personal and professional level. You can’t look after someone else if you don’t look after yourself properly. I’ve had my own mental health issues, but I didn’t want to be stigmatised. I was always told to ‘leave your issues at the door’, but the more we talk about it, the more people don’t feel alone.
“I therefore think having something like Nursing Live, where nursing staff can come together, is a good thing, because nobody outside of nursing really understands what you’re going through.”
Other recent RCN Nurse of the Year winners appearing at Nursing Live include Queen’s Nurse Alison Bunce (RCN Nurse of the Year 2022), who will be hosting a practical workshop on personal well-being at Nursing Live’s Compassion Café, and Ana Waddington (RCN Nurse of the Year 2020), a rough sleeper outreach nurse from University College Hospital NHS Trust, who will be talking about how to avoid burnout.
The patient voice is set to be another key theme running throughout Nursing Live, and it will be central to a special panel focused on the importance of the service user perspective.
Entitled The Power of Stories, contributors will include the creator of the Talking With Cancer podcast, Katie Phillips, and Toni Bewley, Chair of the Service User and Carer Group at Edge Hill University. Joining them will be Jenny Clarke, mother of the Game of Thrones’ actress Emilia Clark, who founded the SameYou charity which campaigns for better rehabilitation for patients following brain injury.
The patient experience will be also central to Michael Rosen’s keynote presentation to Nursing Live delegates. One of the country's best loved authors, poets and broadcasters, Michael will be drawing on his near fatal Covid experience - which saw him placed in an induced coma on an ICU ward for 40 days – to express his deep admiration for the nursing profession.
Michael will also be reading from his Covid patient’s diary, which was kept updated by nursing staff during his stay in hospital, that was restored by the BBC’s Repair Shop team as part of a special edition of the show celebrating 75 years of the NHS earlier this year.
He said: “Nursing Live will give me another opportunity to express my gratitude to thousands of nurses, face to face. I also can’t think of a sector more deserving of an event with a focus on personal well-being, not to mention getting a chance to step away from the pressures of work, and having some fun.”
Fun will certainly be high on the agenda when on Saturday November 11th the Nursing Live Choir makes its debut performance. Sponsored by Liverpool John Moore’s University, and coached by the award-winning team at Funky Voices, the choir will feature a group of nurses, drawn from across the country, who will entertain the crowd with a selection of classic pop, rock and soul tunes.
There will also be a touch of glamour brought to proceedings on Friday November 10th when celebrity stylists Andrew and Liz Collinge take to the main stage to give hair and beauty tips to delegates. They’ll also be announcing the winner of an exclusive Nursing Live makeover competition as part of their live demonstration.
With all of this, plus over 100 CPD sessions, expert talks and demonstrations, Nursing Live will give all nursing staff the chance to develop their skills, network with colleagues, and discover new things.
It will also offer nurses the opportunity to boost their personal well-being, and enjoy a wealth of leisure and lifestyle content designed specifically for the nursing community.